If President Trump can’t stay off Twitter, he can’t seem to resist accusing it of liberal bias either.
Now, his White House has taken to the chief executive’s favorite social media platform to collect stories about partisan posts removed from Twitter itself or Silicon Valley rivals such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
“The Trump administration is fighting for free speech online,” the White House says in a tweet referring users to a form on its website that collects information including citizenship status. “No matter your political views, if you suspect your political views have caused you to be censored or silenced online, we want to hear about it.”
The survey marks the latest salvo from Trump and his Republican allies against tech companies concentrated in Democratic-leaning regions that they say are suppressing conservative opinions. Their concerns are rooted partly in the efforts of social media platforms to remove inflammatory content planted by foreign governments during the last presidential election, when intelligence agencies said Russia was attempting to sway voters in Trump’s favor.
Since then, the president has vented his frustrations in an Oval Office meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Republican lawmakers have grilled social media executives, who deny any partisan favoritism. In 2018, internet personalities Diamond and Silk, whose real names are Lynette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, told the House Judiciary Committee that Facebook had downplayed their posts because of they supported Trump.
[Opinion: Trump’s Twitter threats have lost their shine]
The Trump Administration is fighting for free speech online.
No matter your views, if you suspect political bias has caused you to be censored or silenced online, we want to hear about it! https://t.co/9lc0cqUhuf pic.twitter.com/J8ICbx42dz
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 15, 2019
Facebook’s ban this month of users including Alex Jones of Infowars and Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam this month further inflamed claims of social media censorship. The expulsions, which included far-right political commentator Milo Yiannopoulos and four other incendiary posters, was one of the broadest steps the Menlo Park, Calif.-based company has taken to punish online provocateurs.
Facebook attributed the decision to its long-standing policies on acceptable posts, while the president responded in a tweet that he was continuing to monitor censorship closely.
“This is the United States of America — and we have what’s known as FREEDOM OF SPEECH,” Trump said.
The president, who ranks 13th among the world’s most widely followed Twitter users with more than 60 million followers, has claimed his numbers would be even higher if the San Francisco-based company wasn’t “shadow-banning” the supporters who catapulted him into the White House three years ago. Former President Barack Obama, several notches higher at No. 2, has 106 million.
“Very discriminatory,” the president has said on Twitter, noting that followers regularly disappear in large swaths. “No wonder Congress wants to get involved.”
Many celebrities and politicians, however, might love to have Trump’s numbers.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, a front-runner among Democrats vying to unseat Trump in 2020, has only 3.5 million followers. Trump’s 2016 rival, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has 24.5 million; and Jeff Bezos, the founder of e-commerce site Amazon and a frequent Trump foil, has just 927,000.
[Also read: Trump accuses Twitter of ‘political games’ over his follower count]
