President Donald Trump called the possibility of Facebook and Twitter banning certain user accounts “very dangerous.”
The president’s remarks during a brief interview with Reuters on Monday comes amid intense scrutiny for social media companies like Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) over their handling of abusive and inaccurate posts. Modern-day provocateurs and conspiracy theorists like Alex Jones are continually pushing the line on social media services by peddling misinformation and using language that incites anger.
After facing criticism for failing to take action against Jones after several other tech companies did, Twitter finally said last week that it would ban the conspiracy theorist for seven days for tweets said to have violated the company’s rules.
Twitter, however, stopped short of banning Jones’ account. Trump, who appeared on Jones’ show during his presidential campaign and is a conspiracy fan himself, approves.
“I won’t mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they’re making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow,” Trump said in the Reuters interview.
The president’s comments fall in line with a shared belief with several Republican politicians that social media companies routinely suppress the opinions of those with conservative beliefs, a notion that businesses like Facebook dispute.
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A Facebook spokesperson previously told CNN in a statement that the company does not “suppress content on the basis of political viewpoint or prevent people from seeing what matters most to them because doing so would be directly contrary to Facebook’s mission and our business objectives.”
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told CNN on Friday that the company does “not look at content with regards to political viewpoint or ideology.”
“We look at behavior,” Dorsey said.