President Trump on Tuesday seemed to lay the groundwork for a new political target: social media giants.
“We are also standing up to social media censorship, that’s the new thing,” Trump said during a Tuesday night campaign rally in Charleston, W.Va. “I would rather have fake news then have anybody — including liberal socialists, anything — then have anybody stopped and censored.”
Trump’s statements mark a pivot from his usual swipes at reporters and news outlets, conceding, “We’ve got to live with fake news” because there are “too many sources.”
Instead, he criticized social media platforms that silence or downplay particular people or views online, asserting that his administration believes “in the right of Americans to speak their minds.”
“You can’t have censorship, you can’t pick one person and say, ‘We don’t like what he’s been saying, he’s out,'” Trump continued.
“So we will live with fake news,” he added. “I hate to say it, but we have no choice because that’s by far the better alternative. You can’t have people saying censorship because you know what, it could turn around. It could be them next.”
Social media companies reprimand users, taking actions such as suspension or banning, for infringing their terms and conditions, including content policies. Censorship is performed by governments.
Trump’s new position appears to draw a line between criticizing the press and defending its right to be free and fair.
The president’s attacks on the media have escalated in recent months following his increased use of the epithet that it is the “enemy of the people,” which has earned him bipartisan criticism. Concerned by the rhetoric, more than 300 publications across the country last week defended the role of journalism in scathing editorials denouncing Trump’s attitude.
Simultaneously, social media companies have stepped into the firing line after Alex Jones was suspended or banned by some outfits for violating their respective codes of conduct. Twitter has also been accused of “shadow banning,” an allegation CEO Jack Dorsey has vehemently denied. “Shadow banning” is where the visibility of a user and their content is limited, and they may be unaware their profile has been affected.
