Trump rips tech firms at 'free speech' summit

[webfact]

Trump rips tech firms at 'free speech' summit

By Roberta Rampton and David Shepardson

 

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a "social media summit" meeting with prominent conservative social media figures in the East Room of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 11, 2019. REUTERS/Carlos Barria

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump welcomed prominent conservative social media provocateurs to the White House on Thursday and said that along with himself, they are being treated unfairly by big tech firms, which he says suppress conservative voices.

 

Trump said he has told his administration to look for regulations and legislation that could protect free speech - though he did not provide details on what measures were being discussed - and said he would summon major social firms to the White House for talks in coming weeks.

 

"We're not going to be silenced," Trump said, complaining about fluctuations in the number of his Twitter followers. "Big tech must not censor the voices."

 

Freedom of speech in enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

 

Trump, who regularly lashes out at the mainstream news media for their work which he brands as "fake news," made social media a key part of his 2016 run for office as well as his 2020 reelection campaign. But he and other Republicans have long claimed that online platforms employ tactics to silence their voices, allegations that major social media companies have denied.

 

Dozens of pro-Trump online personalities convened in the stately East Room to discuss what they say is censorship on social media platforms, rubbing elbows with several members of Trump's cabinet and his White House team, and his son Donald Trump, Jr.

 

Amid the sea of suits, several red Trump campaign hats and rubber bracelets popped out. Singer Joy Villa, who describes herself as a conservative activist, wore a flamboyant stars-and-stripes formal gown.

 

Trump called to the stage Lila Rose, an anti-abortion activist who has been blocked from Pinterest; California lawyer Harmeet Dhillon, who has represented conservatives in free-speech lawsuits; and Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, sisters and video bloggers who are better known as Diamond and Silk.

 

Carpe Donktum, a pro-Trump online persona who was recently suspended by Twitter for eight days over a video depicting Trump as a cowboy attacking CNN journalist Jim Acosta, said the face-to-face event could unite online conservatives.

 

In freewheeling remarks that bounced from one topic to another - not unlike his Twitter feed followed by more than 61 million people - Trump talked about the power of social media, and railed against the traditional media standing at the back of the room.

 

"We hardly do press releases anymore," Trump said. "If I put it out on social media, it's like an explosion."

 

"IT'S GENIUS - BUT IT'S BAD"

Trump acknowledged criticism about the online behavior of some conservative users of social media. "Some of you guys are out there - but even you should have a voice," Trump said.

 

"The crap you think of is unbelievable," he said. "I mean it's genius - but it's bad."

 

Trump more than once has threatened retaliatory action related to free speech. In March he signed an executive order requiring U.S. colleges and universities to maintain "free speech" on campus if they want to continue receiving federal research funds, and last September he suggested that the license of television network NBC could be challenged over its news reporting.

 

Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat, said that instead of focusing on "combating Russian social media misinformation, punishing anti-competitive practices, or protecting Americans' data and privacy, the president has invited trolls, conspiracy theorists, anti-Semites, and the whole comments section to the White House."

 

Trump said he might invite some of the conservative social media users back to the White House for the meeting with major social media firms. Three tech officials said they had no knowledge of the meeting before Trump announced it.

 

Facebook Inc <FB.O>, Twitter Inc and Alphabet Inc's <GOOGL.O> Google declined to comment on Trump's announcement that he would bring them to the White House for a meeting.

 

The Internet Association, a trade group representing major tech firms like Facebook, Twitter and Google, said, "Internet companies are not biased against any political ideology, and conservative voices in particular have used social media to great effect."

 

Republicans in Congress have held numerous hearings on the issue of alleged conservative bias on social media outlets.

 

Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who is working on proposed legislation on the issue, took the stage briefly on Thursday to air his complaints.

 

"They've gotten rich off of their special privileges from government. They want to keep those, they shouldn't discriminate. They shouldn't censor," Hawley said.

 

A Senate panel chaired by Republican Ted Cruz on Tuesday will hold a hearing titled "Google and Censorship through Search Engines" featuring Google's vice president of public policy, Karan Bhatia.

 

(Reporting by David Shepardson and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Additional reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in San Francisco; Editing by Alistair Bell and Leslie Adler)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-07-12

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[daoyai]

Great to see the prez defending constitutional rights from the loony left. ... they hate freedom.

[candide]

Another fake conspiracy theory by the serial liar. Is he trying to get Russian accounts allowed again before elections?

[daoyai]

14 minutes ago, candide said:

Another fake conspiracy theory by the serial liar. Is he trying to get Russian accounts allowed again before elections?

Fake? most of the participants attending this meeting have been deplatformed, banned or or otherwise censored on youtube, FB, google etc. ... this is real.

[lannarebirth]

So the issue isn't that most of the  stuff on the internet is hype and bullshit, but that his particular brand of hype and bullshit isn't getting enough exposure.

[bristolboy]

12 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

So the issue isn't that most of the  stuff on the internet is hype and bullshit, but that his particular brand of hype and bullshit isn't getting enough exposure.

There's hype and BS on one hand, and on the other there's malevolent hype and BS.

[lannarebirth]

3 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

There's hype and BS on one hand, and on the other there's malevolent hype and BS.

 

Right, that's why I gave an example of the "deplorables" which brought us to this point. Don't but, but, but me because you must know that it was the Democrats that gave us Trump. People like Jingthing are in denial of that but I'm gonna give you more credit.

[bristolboy]

Just now, lannarebirth said:

 

Right, that's why I gave an example of the "deplorables" which brought us to this point. Don't but, but, but me because you must know that it was the Democrats that gave us Trump. People like Jingthing are in denial of that but I'm gonna give you more credit.

Stop with the condescending social engineering. And no the Dems didn't give us Trump. Actually the media did. In the last election they spend almost no time on issue of importance and instead concentrated on tripe. 

 

https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/

[lannarebirth]

Just now, bristolboy said:

Stop with the condescending social engineering. And no the Dems didn't give us Trump. Actually the media did. In the last election they spend almost no time on issue of importance and instead concentrated on tripe. 

 

https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/

 

Well, I'll concede the media played a huge part, and will again. If it bleeds it leads; and people seem to eat it up.

[bristolboy]

1 minute ago, lannarebirth said:

 

Well, I'll concede the media played a huge part, and will again. If it bleeds it leads; and people seem to eat it up.

And there's also Comey at the last minute announcing a reopening of the investigation. And of course the Russians and wikileaks.

[simple1]

Yet another example of trump highlighting he is unfit to represent the Office of the President of the USA. 

 

“It’s not surprising that one of the loudest disseminators of misinformation is inviting known extremists and conspiracy theory peddlers to the White House social media summit. It’s a shame President Trump would prefer to fan the same fires of online social discord that Russia sparked in the 2016 election rather than bring real experts together to address the issue of content moderation in a thoughtful and rational manner.”

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/11/we-will-not-let-them-get-away-with-it-trump-threatens-social-media-ahead-white-house-summit/?utm_term=.31811a78528b

[lannarebirth]

2 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

And there's also Comey at the last minute announcing a reopening of the investigation. And of course the Russians and wikileaks.

 

Actually, I agree with Hillary, that Comey screwed her. The Russians played virtually no part despite the press, and Wikileaks offered some transparency to something that everyone knew was going on but couldn't prove. The only fault I would say about Wikileaks is that they didn't provide the same amount of transparency to the other side.

[bendejo]

I saw parts of his speech to them on tv.  He was bragging how his twitter numbers jumped when he came up the one saying he was being spied on.

 

I'm sure they now have pictures and ids of all these guys, the joke's on them.

 

 

[bendejo]

10 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

And there's also Comey at the last minute announcing a reopening of the investigation. And of course the Russians and wikileaks.

Yes, first Comey pulls that because he is afraid to upset the GOP, then Mueller found DT culpable but wouldn't come right out and state it, Ken Starr style.  I always suspected that at a cultural the DC establishment has its finger on the scale for the GOP (regardless of which party controls the WH or Congress at any given moment).  If I had any doubt previously....

 

 

[Mavideol]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

"We hardly do press releases anymore," Trump said. "If I put it out on social media, it's like an explosion."

yeah and everyday I frequently rant and rave over insignificant issues,

[bristolboy]

12 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

 

Actually, I agree with Hillary, that Comey screwed her. The Russians played virtually no part despite the press, and Wikileaks offered some transparency to something that everyone knew was going on but couldn't prove. The only fault I would say about Wikileaks is that they didn't provide the same amount of transparency to the other side.

You're saying that the Russians didn't hack the DNP?

[ThaiBunny]

1 minute ago, bendejo said:

Mueller found DT culpable but wouldn't come right out and state it, Ken Starr style.

Quite so. I think we all would have an equivalent summary to Ken Starr's description of acts of oral-anal sex most entertaining and I for one am disappointed that Mueller did not include any

[lannarebirth]

6 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

You're saying that the Russians didn't hack the DNP?

No, I'm not.

[bristolboy]

3 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

No, I'm not.

"The Russians played virtually no part despite the press," ?

[lannarebirth]

30 minutes ago, bristolboy said:

"The Russians played virtually no part despite the press," ?

I thought that was what the American investigative press should have done. As I mentioned in a previous post my only objection is that it was not done to the Republicans as well.  I am a fan of transparency.

 

 

 

 

 

[JMSIII]

12 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

It thought that was what the American investigative press should have done. As I mentioned in a previous post my only objection is that it was not done to the Republicans as well.  I am a fan of transparency.

The old American investigative press is non existent today.  The Main Stream Media in the US is as corrupt as the day is long.  They are propaganda machine for the Democratic Party, with all of them quoting the same talking points in tandem together.

 

The US MSM is controlled by the CIA, think Operation Mockingbird....

 

But we do have a few very solid investigative reporters such as Sara Carter and John Solomon...

 

 

[Bluespunk]

6 hours ago, webfact said:

Trump said he has told his administration to look for regulations and legislation that could protect free speech - though he did not provide details 

Quelle surprise 

[expatfromwyoming]

The whole "summit????" was just a Trump troll to appease his dwindling base of sheep.

Besides it was only attended by Trumps like minded gadflies and the entire swarm collectively didn't break out of the teens in regards IQ

[usviphotography]

40 minutes ago, lannarebirth said:

I thought that was what the American investigative press should have done. As I mentioned in a previous post my only objection is that it was not done to the Republicans as well.  I am a fan of transparency.

 

It wouldn't have mattered though because though the RNC almost certainly tried to screw Trump over just as badly as the DNC did Bernie, Trump still ended up winning the nomination. The candidate who had been screwed didn't lose on the GOP side, so emails detailing the RNC's corruption would have only helped Trump. 

[Hayduke]

1 hour ago, lannarebirth said:

Right, that's why I gave an example of the "deplorables" which brought us to this point. Don't but, but, but me because you must know that it was the Democrats that gave us Trump. People like Jingthing are in denial of that but I'm gonna give you more credit.

 

The Democratic National Committee gave us Trump by shooting themselves in the foot with their nomination of the Clinton person. The Republicans did not win the election, the Democrats lost it. There is a difference.

 

 

[lannarebirth]

Just now, Hayduke said:

 

The Democratic National Committee gave us Trump by giving the nomination to the Clinton person. Trump did not win the election, Clinton lost it.

 

 

 

That is patently obvious. It is unfortunate that the Democrat's machinations came to us through Wikileaks rather than the mainstream investigative press but that's what you can expect when the corporations run the media and anoint the various winners in whichever country they operate in.

[DoctorG]

Even though there is no list of attendees, the media is happy to describe everyone there as right-wing extremists. The usual standard of reporting it seems. I only know of a few attendees, one being the centre-left Tim Pool, who is a Tulsi supporter.

[Boon Mee]

Point is that they first came for Alex Jones.

Where does it stop? De-platforming National Review and Breitbart etc? 

[spidermike007]

2 hours ago, lannarebirth said:

 

Right, that's why I gave an example of the "deplorables" which brought us to this point. Don't but, but, but me because you must know that it was the Democrats that gave us Trump. People like Jingthing are in denial of that but I'm gonna give you more credit.

Wrong. It was 25 years of binging on reality TV that gave us Trump. It was the constant dumbing down of the American people, to the point where just a few carefully engineered slogans was all it took to vote for an infantile guy, who himself said there was no way he was going to get elected. 

[usviphotography]

13 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

Wrong. It was 25 years of binging on reality TV that gave us Trump. It was the constant dumbing down of the American people, to the point where just a few carefully engineered slogans was all it took to vote for an infantile guy, who himself said there was no way he was going to get elected. 

Being a celebrity can be helpful, but it isn't enough. America First is what won Trump the election. And it kind of came to him accidentally. He had a throwaway line about immigration in his announcement speech. Then the media, in their typical fashion, pounced on him for being "racist". But instead of cowering in fear and begging forgiveness, Trump doubled down. It was that exchange that carried him through all the way to the White House. People saw that he was willing to take a pro-American, rather than pro-elite position on a key policy point, and then they saw that when challenged on it, he was willing to fight. The country had been waiting a long time for somebody like that. 

 

Social Media and Alternative Media certainly played a huge role in Trump winning the general election, but the key event that vaulted Trump to the top of the GOP field was the Mainstream Media trying to play their silly race card on Trump. If they don't do that, Trump probably never leaves the bottom tier of candidates.