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News hardware & software 28 May 2020, 13:14

author: Kuszu

Trump Suggests He May Help Shut Down Twitter

Is there going to be a war between social media and politics? Twitter has marked Donald Trump's entries as „misleading”, Mark Zuckerberg criticizes the website's actions, and the president himself threatens to shut down „social networks that try to silence conservatives”. Things are getting interesting.

Can Trump shut down Twitter?
  1. Donald Trump wants to solve the problem of social networking websites that try to silence him;
  2. Jack Dorsey said that Twitter will continue to point out misleading posts.

A few days ago, the world was was informed that Twitter had marked Donald Trump's posts on correspondence voting as misleading. The President of the United States claimed that this type of election must, by definition, be filled with electoral frauds. Immediately after the event, Trump published tweets in which he expressed concern that social media are trying to silence conservatives through illegal activities. He also suggested that his government would certainly "regulate the issue or contribute to shutting down rogue social networking websites. The current U.S. President did not say explicitly that this was about Twitter, but it is more than certain.

It should be mentioned here that Donald Trump has no power to close down listed companies, so the disappearance of Twitter from the United States is rather unlikely. Professor Herbert Hovenkamp, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, says that Trump's threat itself violates the First Amendment, which protects the freedom of speech of all US citizens. It is worth remembering, however, that Trump loves making life difficult for technology companies. Let's just remind of the regulations addressed to Huawei.

Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter, has said in response to Donald Trump's accusations that his website will continue to point out tweets that may mislead Internet users. He added that the aim of his social platform is to "connect the dots" and present the widest possible point of view. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, criticized Twitter for such actions, suggesting that private companies should not interfere with politics. He also added that his website does not engage in censoring posts.

Brad Parscale, Donald Trump's campaign manager, said that some social media have always made it difficult for the president to voice his opinion on a given topic. It is interesting to note that the 45th President of the United States has been a Twitter user for many years. His record is publishing 100 entries in one day.

  1. Twitter - official website