President Trump said Tuesday that “something” needs to be done to stop anti-conservative bias on Twitter and other social media platforms, but didn’t say what his administration might do about it.
“Something is happening with those groups of folks that are running Facebook and Google and Twitter, and I do think we have to get to the bottom of it. It’s very fair. It’s collusive and very, very fair to say that we have to do something about it,” Trump said in the White House Rose Garden with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
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Trump spoke after his White House social media director Dan Scavino was temporarily blocked from using Facebook. Trump said his own huge Twitter following shows that platform is “different than it used to be.”
Trump said corporate executives are to blame for alleged bias.
“We use the word collusion very loosely all the time, and I will tell you there is collusion with respect to that because something has to be going on,” Trump said. “When you get the back scene, back office statements made by executives of the various companies and you see the level of, in many cases, hatred they have for a certain group of people that happen to be in power, that happen to have won the election, you say that’s really unfair.”
Trump says “we have to do something” about conservatives being censored on social media platforms.
“It’s different than it used to be,” Trump said. “It seems to be if they’re conservative, if they’re Republicans, if they’re in a certain group there’s discrimination.” pic.twitter.com/B6WfS4b7v6
— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) March 19, 2019
Last year, as some conservatives alleged politically motivated “shadow banning” of their content on platforms, Trump cited a decline in Twitter followers and said unflattering news was often at the top of Google News. Defenders of the large web companies noted Twitter had removed large numbers of fake accounts, and said algorithms and efforts to address abusive content explained other issues.
[Related: Trump ‘looking into’ Facebook censoring of top aide]
In August, Trump warned tech companies to “be careful” of exhibiting political bias, warning, “I think that Google and Twitter and Facebook, they’re really treading on very, very troubled territory.”
Although publicly critical, Trump recently passed up an opportunity to address his concerns behind closed doors when Google CEO Sundar Pichai visited the White House in December for a discussion about artificial intelligence. A source told the Washington Examiner that Trump discussed his optimism about trade negotiations, including with China, but did not mention alleged bias.
