Donald Trump Jr. went nuclear on Tuesday, slamming Twitter for “fact-checking” his father with the likes of CNN and The Washington Post.
The president’s son wondered aloud whether the social media platform would apply the same scrutiny to liberals who have accused President Donald Trump of being a Russian agent after the Big Tech giant took the unusual step of correcting a tweet that the president made about mail-in ballots, the Washington Examiner reported Wednesday.
DTJ slams Twitter’s “fact-check”
Twitter sent shockwaves through the internet on Tuesday when it flagged some of President Trump’s tweets as misinformation, with an option for users to see what CNN, The Washington Post, and other liberal “experts” had to say about his claim that mail-in ballots would lead to the November election being “rigged.”
“On Tuesday, President Trump made a series of claims about potential voter fraud after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an effort to expand mail-in voting in California during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Twitter said in its supposed fact-check, according to the Examiner. “These claims are unsubstantiated, according to CNN, Washington Post, and others. Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud.”
The president fumed in response that Twitter was “interfering” in the 2020 election, and his son chimed in with a flurry of tweets attacking the decision, including posts highlighting that Twitter’s head of “site integrity” had made tweets comparing President Trump to Hitler and mocking “flyover states,” as the Daily Mail reported.
Trump Jr. also slammed Twitter for showing bias toward his father by letting people lie with impunity about alleged Russia collusion, as the Examiner noted.
So is @Twitter going to start censoring & fact-checking all the numerous blue check mark “journalists” & leftwing activists who falsely claimed that the Trump campaign colluded with the Russian government & that @realDonaldTrump is a “puppet” of Putin for the past 4 years?
https://t.co/HqZ4mAMUvC
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 26, 2020
Trump to regulate social media?
Trump Jr.’s question could have been taken as a rhetorical one, given longtime complaints from conservatives — including him — about a pattern of censorship on Twitter and other social media platforms.
But it appears that Twitter’s “fact-check” also angered the president, who threatened to “strongly regulate” or even close down social media platforms that “totally silence conservatives voices” in a tweet.
“Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!” the president warned in another post Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the White House said that the president is planning to sign an executive order on Thursday to regulate social media platforms, Reuters reported.
Well, that backfired.
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