President Donald Trump is again putting pressure on tech firms, telling Reuters in an interview published Monday that it’s “very dangerous” when social platforms like Twitter and Facebook self-regulate content.
Major social media firms have for months been answering to claims of conservative censorship. Trump last month called Twitter “discriminatory” and accused the company of “shadow banning” prominent Republicans — a practice commonly cited as the de-emphasizing of certain accounts from search results.
Trump’s latest comments come just two weeks after major tech firms suspended or banned conservative radio host Alex Jones for violating community policies. Facebook was among the earliest to remove post by the InfoWars host and did so after Apple took down several of his podcasts. Twitter was later to act, but ultimately suspended Jones for a week.
Both Twitter and Facebook are private companies, not agencies of the government, and so are not held to First Amendment restrictions on curating speech.
Representatives for the companies have appeared before Congress several times in the last year to address claims of conservative censorship. Twitter has repeatedly said it does not shadow ban, and Facebook has said it does not moderate content based on political beliefs.
But the firms have been ramping up content moderation and hiring more human fact-checkers as abuse of the platforms increases. Facebook and Twitter each saw calculated misinformation campaigns during the 2016 presidential election in which foreign actors sought to play up political divisions around social issues.
Facebook said last month it detected similar interference ahead of the midterm elections this fall. Twitter, also in July, announced a purge of abusive accounts.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
