UPDATED 23:45 EDT / AUGUST 19 2018

POLICY

President Trump vents over social media ‘censorship’

Following the controversial Silicon Valley crackdown on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, President Donald Trump has raised concerns over what he believes is unfair “censorship.”

In a series of tweets Saturday, Trump said that such censorship, a term more properly applied to government actions rather than those of private companies, is aimed more at “Republican/Conservative voices” than it is the left. He added that his administration won’t let this happen.

“Censorship is a very dangerous thing and absolutely impossible to police,” Trump said in another tweet. “If you are weeding out Fake News, there is nothing so Fake as CNN and MSNBC, and 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.”

The president didn’t explicitly mention Alex Jones, but given these statements came shortly after Jones’ content was taken off several social media platforms, one would think there is a connection.

“Too many voices are being destroyed, some good & some bad, and that cannot be allowed to happen,” Trump said. “Who is making the choices, because I can already tell you that too many mistakes are being made. Let everybody participate, good and bad, and we will all just have to figure it out!”

Twitter Inc. lagged in its limiting of what can be tweeted, something the platform was criticized for and also complimented for depending on where people stood on the issue. The platform did eventually give Jones a “timeout.”

On Friday, Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey explained to CNN its rationale behind moderation.

“Are we doing something according to political ideology or viewpoints? We are not. Period,” Dorsey said. “We do not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology. We look at behavior.”

Dorsey admitted that Twitter might be “left-leaning” but denied that the platform itself is biased. “We need to remove all bias from how we act and our policies and our enforcement and our tools,” he added.

Dorsey reiterated that Twitter needs to be transparent and also attempt to be a hub of healthy debate on all sides of the political spectrum. When asked about people’s concern that such platforms now wield too much power, he said he didn’t think it was the case.

“I do understand the sentiment,” Dorsey said. “I do understand how actions by us could generate more fear, and I think the only way we can disarm that is by being a lot more open, explaining in a straightforward way why we make decisions, how we make decisions.”

Image: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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