Twitter gagging conservative voices a ‘giant mistake’: Trump
WASHINGTON : US President Donald Trump took to Twitter once again on Sunday to accuse Twitter, the messaging platform, of gagging conservative voices - a "Giant Mistake!" that he said runs counter to freedom of expression.
"Twitter should let the banned Conservative Voices back onto their platform, without restriction," he wrote.
"It's called Freedom of Speech, remember. You are making a Giant Mistake!"
Twitter, and other social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, have recently moved to block personalities accused of inciting violence and using the platforms to promote anti-Semitism, racism and conspiracy theories.
The decisions were taken under pressure from critics who think the social networks are not acting quickly enough to remove shocking or problematic material.
Those banished by one or more of the platforms include Mr Alex Jones, a notorious purveyor of conspiracy theories towards whom Mr Trump has expressed sympathy in the past, and Mr Paul Nehlen, a white supremacist who ran unsuccessfully in Republican primaries for a US congressional seat.
It is not the first time the US President has accused Twitter, Facebook or Google of discriminating against right-wing users.
The Republican billionaire, whose Twitter account is followed by nearly 61 million people, regularly attacks the high-tech giants as politically biased or, as he put it in a recent tweet, "sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats". - AFP
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