President Trump has a well-established track record of criticizing the press, but his latest target appears to be social media companies. He took to Twitter on Saturday to allege that social platforms — though he didn't clarify which ones — are discriminating against "Republican/Conservative voices."
"Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won’t let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others......." Trump tweeted.
He continued in another tweet, ".....Censorship is a very dangerous thing & absolutely impossible to police. If you are weeding out Fake News, there is nothing so Fake as CNN & MSNBC, & yet I do not ask that their sick behavior be removed. I get used to it and watch with a grain of salt, or don’t watch at all."
In a third and final tweet, Trump appeared to offer a solution to the supposed problem of conservative censorship. "....Too many voices are being destroyed, some good & some bad, and that cannot be allowed to happen. Who is making the choices, because I can already tell you that too many mistakes are being made. Let everybody participate, good & bad, and we will all just have to figure it out!"
Trump's mention of letting everyone, "good and bad," have accounts on social media is particularly timely as many continue to debate whether or not companies should ban or suspend people like conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who was recently kicked off Facebook and YouTube. Twitter made a similar move last week by suspending the far-right "Proud Boys" group.
The president expressed a similar sentiment earlier this month when conservatives began accusing Twitter of "shadow banning" them. The allegation surfaced after Vice News' Alex Thompson reported that a number of Republicans weren't appearing in automatic search results. However, it turned out that the accounts that weren't showing up were actually "bad-faith actors," meaning that they often engaged in abusive or unhealthy behavior, according to Twitter.
Regardless, Trump still tweeted that he would "look into" the "discriminatory and illegal" practice of shadow banning Republicans.
In just a couple of weeks, Twitter's CEO Jack Dorsey and executives from Facebook and Google are set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss Russia's interference with the 2016 presidential election.
