Business insider got its hands on a draft executive order directing agencies to go after the two for “the exercise of bias” or more accurately for not exercising bias in favor of Trump. It includes accusations without a basis in data, science or facts. Of course. From the article…..
The president and other conservatives have repeatedly complained that they believe Facebook and Google (owned by corporate parent Alphabet) bias the way they show news to users by dampening down conservative voices or outlets. In August, Trump tweeted, "Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won't let that happen. They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others......."
Trump later claimed that Google did not highlight his State of the Union speech on its front page even though it had always done that for President Obama. But that allegation turned out to be entirely false. Google promoted Trump's State of the Union event in the same way it did for Obama.
Facebook has removed some conservative commentators from its platform, such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, after they broke Facebook's rules against "glorifying violence" and "hate speech" against minorities. Many conservatives believe that shows the platforms do not give them a fair shake.
Some bullets from the top of the story….
- Business Insider has obtained a copy of a proposed executive order for President Trump that would ask federal law enforcement to "thoroughly investigate whether any online platform has acted in violation of the antitrust laws," to "protect competition among online platforms and address online platform bias."
- Trump has previously said, "Social Media is totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices."
- He has also stated, wrongly, that Google discriminated against his State of the Union speech.
- There is no evidence that either Google or Facebook systematically discriminate against conservatives.
Mother jones adds...
Lindsey Walters, deputy White House press secretary, denied in a statement to Bloomberg that the document was a part of any “official White House policy making process.” Multiple sources also denied the existence of the document to the Washington Post, which reported this weekend that the memo has been shared with executives at tech companies, including Facebook and Yelp.
So in a nutshell Trump is getting ready to go after companies that won’t push pro-Trump/Russia propaganda and is lying about. Par for the course.