President Donald Trump claimed in an interview broadcast Friday that Twitter is working to artificially lower the number of people who see his daily blasts of topics that range from the U.S. economy to Iranian saber-rattling.
‘It’s not right the way they do it. I know exactly what they’re doing. They take people off my account. They make it very hard for people to join,’ he told the Fox Business Network.
A Twitter spokesperson did not respond to emailed questions on Friday morning about the allegation, nor did Trump’s social media guru Daniel Scavino.
But the president’s claim, if true, would suggest an ideologically driven effort to tamp down his successful habit of sidestepping traditional news media with a megaphone large enough to reach more people that the number who watch cable news.
Still, he said, he doesn’t look favorably on the concept of treating social media titans like public utilities and breaking them up to dilute their monopoly power.
‘I don’t like the concept of it,’ the president said.’ I really would like everybody to be free, but they don’t treat us the same way as they treat liberal Democrats and others.’
President Donald Trump said in an interview broadcast Friday that Twitter has been artificially squeezing his account, removing followers and making it harder for him to add more
Trump has more than 59 million Twitter followers; the idea that the social platform would limit the number of people who can see his daily posts incensed him on Monday, according to a White House official
‘I’m able to get the word out through my social media,’ he said, ‘because I have great social media, but I’ll tell you, it’s much tougher than it should be.’
Trump said that until recently he ‘was picking up hundreds of thousands of people in a very short period of time,’ before changing the subject without describing what may have changed.
He said Tuesday that Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms are discriminating against conservatives and other Republicans, and accused them of colluding with each other to limit online speech.
‘We use the word “collusion” very loosely all the time,’ Trump said during a joint press conference with Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro, ‘and I will tell you there is collusion with respect to that because something has to be going on.’
Scavino complained Monday that Facebook was preventing him from interacting with people who leave comments on his personal page.
And the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. wrote in an op-ed that ‘Big Tech’s censorship of conservatives’ has become ‘ever more flagrant and overt.’
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he believes social media companies are ‘colluding’ to limit conservatives’ public exposure
Trump made his commnts during a joint press conference with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, specifically naming Twitter and Facebook
The president also mentioned Google earlier in the day, naming the search giant as a company that’s ‘on the side of the Radical Left Democrats’
The president appeared to agree. ‘It seems to be if they’re conservative, if they’re Republicans, if they’re in a certain group, there’s discrimination, and big discrimination, and I see it absolutely on Twitter and Facebook … and others,’ he said Tuesday. ‘We have to do something.’
‘Things are happening, names are taken off, people aren’t getting through. You’ve heard the same complaints,’ he added, referring to what conservatives have called ‘shadow-banning.
Trump claimed that executives at social media companies harbor ‘hatred’ in many cases, toward ‘a certain group of people that happen to be in power, that happen to have won the election.’
‘I do think we have to get to the bottom of it,’ the president urder, without suggesting any actions he might take.
He also renewed his attacks on traditional media, including TV networks and their newscasts.
Scavino’s experience with Facebook enraged Trump, according to a White House official.
President Trump’s longtime social media manager, Dan Scavino, is also his director of Oval Office operations; Scavino found himself on Monday locked out of commenting on his own Facebook posts
Scavino complained top Facebook and the company says it has apologized, but insisted his temporary loss of access was not driven by ideology or by who he works for
‘Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats. But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before! #MAGA,’ the president tweeted Tuesday morning.
Scavino, a longtime Trump aide, posted a screen shot Monday night of a message from Facebook saying he was temporarily blocked from making public comments because some of his comments had been reported as spam.
‘AMAZING. WHY ARE YOU STOPPING ME from replying to comments followers have left me – on my own Facebook Page!!??’ an incensed Scavino wrote.
‘People have the right to know. Why are you silencing me???’
Facebook said the issue was an ‘unintended consequence’ of its spam policy, and claimed in a statement that it had apologized for what it called an ‘inconvenience.’
‘I will be looking into this!’ the president boomed in a tweet.
Trump Jr., meanwhile, blasted social platforms more explicitly in an essay for The Hill, an inside-the-beltway political newspaper.
‘Left unchecked, Big Tech and liberal activists could construct a private ‘social credit’ system — not unlike what the communists have nightmarishly implemented in China — that excludes outspoken conservatives from wide swaths of American life simply because their political views differ from those of tech executives,’ he wrote.
On Twitter, Trump Jr. reacted to Scavino’s Facebook hassle: ‘As I’ve been saying. This is a disgusting abuse of power, and of course it only goes one way.’
Donald Trump Jr. slammed tech companies like Twitter in an op-ed on Monday, complaining that they ‘shadowban’ conservatives
Don Jr. reacted to Scavino’s Facebook beef by saying it’s a problem only conservatives seem to have
California Republican Rep. Devin Nunes filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against Twitter and some of its users for defamation and ‘shadow-banning’
Separately, a prominent Republican congressman sued Twitter for ‘shadow-banning conservatives’ on Monday, bringing the issue into sharper relief.
Rep. Devin Nunes, a California Republican, seeks $250 million in compensatory damages and $350,000 in punitive damages against Twitter and some of its users.
Nunes alleged in his lawsuit that Twitter is guilty of ‘knowingly hosting and monetizing content that is clearly abusive, hateful and defamatory — providing both a voice and financial incentive to the defamers — thereby facilitating defamation on its platform.’
Nunes named specific Twitter accounts in his legal complaint, including an accusation that a GOP consultant had ‘implied’ in tweets ‘that Nunes colluded with prostitutes and cocaine addicts, that Nunes does cocaine, and that Nunes was involved in a ‘Russian money laundering front”.’
The lawsuit also names the accounts @DevinNunesMom and ‘Devin Nunes’ Cow,’ or @DevinCow as harrassing troublemakers.