Trump targets Twitter for daring to ‘fact-check’ him
ALONGSIDE his war with ‘mainstream media’, many of whom he accuses of spreading ‘fake news’ about himself, Donald Trump is engaged in a fierce battle with Twitter.
The president has used Tweets throughout his political career to get his views direct to voters, bypassing TV news, radio and newspapers. He has almost 81 million followers on the social media site and has tweeted an astonishing 52,000 times.
On Thursday, he signed an order seeking to make social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook liable for the content posted by their users.
His aim was to overturn decades of precedent by treating these websites as ‘publishers’ which could be sued for usergenerated content. The move could lead to a flood of lawsuits agains the sites from anyone who claims to be harmed by content posted online.
The White House decision came as Twitter condemned Trump twice in four days last week, accusing him of ‘glorifying violence’ in his apparent call for the military to use force against protesters.
His inflammatory statement that ‘when the looting starts, the shooting starts’ has been hidden by a warning that it violated Twitter’s rules.
As ever, Trump has been using Twitter to give an unexpurgated running commentary of his thoughts on the world.
His tweet, made at 1am, described looters as ‘thugs’ and warned that the federal government would ‘assume control’ with ‘shooting’ if necessary after protesters set fire to a police precinct. Twitter justified its action saying it had done so ‘in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts’.
This is the latest escalation in Trump’s feud with the website after it issued a fact-check warning against him on Tuesday, leading to the president’s retaliatory executive order seeking to strip social media giants of their legal protections.
Characteristically, the president taunted his latest enemy, saying: ‘Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies and propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party.
‘They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States.’