President Donald Trump would shut down Twitter if he could find a way to legally do it, he confirmed minutes before signing an executive order dealing with social media Thursday.
Trump made the comments during Thursday’s signing ceremony in the Oval Office. His new order calls for Congress to change Section 230, the law that governs social media platforms, to grant fewer legal protections to websites. When asked about his relationship with Twitter, Trump said he would shut down the company if he could.
“I think we shut it down as far as I’m concerned but I’d have to go through a legal process,” Trump said, referring to Twitter. “If it were able to be legally shut down I would do it.” (RELATED: Twitter Says It Will Not Remove Trump’s Tweets About Scarborough’s Dead Intern)
Two days after Twitter factchecked him for the first time, Trump says he’d shut the platform down if his lawyers could find a way. “I think we shut it down as far as I’m concerned but I’d have to go through a legal process…if it were able to be legally shut down I would do it.”
— Rebecca Ballhaus (@rebeccaballhaus) May 28, 2020
Trump also said he would delete his Twitter account “in a heartbeat” if he trusted the media to treat him fairly.
“If we had fair press in this country, I would do this in a heartbeat,” he said. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than get rid of my whole Twitter account. But I’m able to get to I guess 186 million people when you add up all the different accounts, and add Facebook and Instagram.”
Trump took his criticism of social media to new heights after Twitter fact checked two of his Monday tweets regarding mail-in voting. Twitter labelled the tweets “potentially misleading,” leading to Trump accusing the company of interfering in the election.
Twitter has denied that political bias impacts its moderating of Twitter, however. (RELATED: Twitter Won’t Remove Chinese Official’s Tweet Suggesting US Army Introduced Virus Into Wuhan)
“We enforce the Twitter Rules impartially for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation,” the tech company told the Wall St. Journal. “We are constantly working to improve our systems and will continue to be transparent and in regular communication with elected officials in regard to our efforts.”