President Trump has threatened to close down social media platforms after Twitter added fact-check links to his tweets for the first time. The link of the fact checkers directed social media users to opinion articles of news outlets and reporters presenting their personal views featuring articles from two organisations he regards as his sworn enemies, CNN and the Washington Post.
The battle between the president and the social-media companies has been brewing for a time, as it has become increasingly apparent that social media tech giants have anti-conservative bias.
The US presidential election is scheduled to be held in November and Trump fears that the left-leaning social media will affect voters by choosing what views will be shared online.
Twitter’s “fact-checkers” were prompted to act after a couple of Trump tweets where the U.S President expressed his opinion about possible about “fraudulent” postal ballots in US elections.
It took him no time to fight back, tweeting: “Twitter is completely stifling free speech, and I, as President, will not allow it to happen.”
Social media platforms are licensed to operate as platforms i.e independent and unbiased digital spaces where any views can be shared in order to avoid defamation and libel lawsuits. But in reality they have been increasingly abusing their powers by acting as publishers with the imposition of arbitrary “fact-checkers” and by effectively deciding what kind of speech is permissible on their platforms.
Then, on Wednesday morning, the president woke up and raised the temperature even further with this two-part tweet:
.@Twitter is now interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election. They are saying my statement on Mail-In Ballots, which will lead to massive corruption and fraud, is incorrect, based on fact-checking by Fake News CNN and the Amazon Washington Post….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 26, 2020
In his latest Tweet the U.S President implied he would be taking action against the company tweeting out “Stay Tuned!!”
Big Tech is doing everything in their very considerable power to CENSOR in advance of the 2020 Election. If that happens, we no longer have our freedom. I will never let it happen! They tried hard in 2016, and lost. Now they are going absolutely CRAZY. Stay Tuned!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 28, 2020
