Trump says Google, Facebook should be sued over bias allegations
President Trump on Wednesday said tech giants Google and Facebook should be sued over alleged bias toward conservatives.
“We should be suing Google and Facebook and all that, which perhaps we will,” Trump said during a phone interview with Fox Business Network.
Trump also attacked Twitter, claiming without evidence that the company is “making it very hard” to “get out my message” by making it more difficult for people to follow him.
“Twitter is just terrible, what they do,” he said.
{mosads}The president reportedly complained about his follower count during an April meeting with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who explained his lost followers were largely bots.
Republicans have long accused Google and Facebook of suppressing conservative content and ads, something they say violates free speech protections. Others say the sites are private companies that are not bound by the First Amendment and have the ability to regulate the content that appears on their platforms.
Some GOP lawmakers have suggested that Congress should remove protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in order to hold web platforms legally liable for content posted by users.
“These people are all Democrats. It’s totally biased towards Democrats,” Trump said, citing anti-Trump comments made by one Google employee published by a website run by conservative activist James O’Keefe.
The employee, Jen Gennai, said the video was recorded by people who lied about their identities, filmed her without her consent and “selectively edited” the footage.
Executives from the tech companies have long denied institutional bias at their companies, and Democrats have repeatedly said there is no evidence to back up conservatives’ claims there is widespread bias at companies like Google, Facebook and Twitter.
“We build our products with extraordinary care and safeguards to be a trustworthy source of information for everyone, without any regard for political viewpoint. Our rating guidelines are publicly visible for all to see,” a Google spokesperson wrote in an email responding to Trump’s comments.
–This report was updated at 11:46 a.m.
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