- Trump tweeted Monday that Twitter’s trending topics are “really ridiculous, illegal and, of course, very unfair.”
- He also hinted, without citing any evidence, that Twitter was intentionally manipulating trends, which are automatically determined based on user activity, to make it look bad.
- Trump has become increasingly critical of social media companies in recent months and has issued an executive order seeking to remove legal protections for content posted on his platforms.
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President Donald Trump rekindled his enmity with Twitter on Monday, suggesting that the trending topic section of the website is “illegal” because the topics and content featured there make it look bad.
“It is disgusting to see the so-called ‘Trend’ on Twitter, where there are a lot of trends about me, and never a good one. They look for everything they can find, they make it as bad as possible and they explode, trying to make a trend. Really ridiculous, illegal and, of course, very unfair! “Trump tweeted.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2020
Trump did not mention a specific trend or cite any evidence to back up his claim that Twitter was intentionally biasing its trends against him, nor did he say what laws he believed the company was violating.
The Twitter website says that “trends are determined by an algorithm and, by default, are tailored to you based on who you follow, your interests, and your location.” Users can also see topics that are trending by location instead of the ones customized for them, depending on the site.
Twitter declined to comment for this story.
Trump and other conservatives frequently accuse social media companies of bias against their political views, although so far without any systemic evidence. Trump has more than 84 million followers on the platform, the seventh largest audience of any user and second only to former President Barack Obama among politicians, according to Brandwatch.
Courts have rejected multiple lawsuits filed by conservatives who said social media companies illegally discriminated against them because the First Amendment does not apply to private companies.
Trump’s own criticism of social media sites, Twitter in particular, has intensified in recent months as the platforms face increasing pressure to take action against hateful and potentially violence-inducing speech, as well as disinformation.
Twitter sparked Trump’s anger in May when he added fact-checking links to his fake tweets about voting by mail, and again the same week when he applied a “glorifying violence” tag to his tweet that threatened protesters after the death of George Floyd with a shot.
Shortly afterward, Trump issued an executive order directed at Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, a law that protects social media companies from being sued for content posted by users on their platforms, specifically calling Twitter. . Legal and technology policy experts have expressed skepticism that the order will be upheld in court.
