President Trump’s White House is asking people to report social media sites, including Twitter, Google, and Facebook, if they suspect the site’s “political bias” has caused them to be banned.
“The Trump Administration is fighting for free speech online. No matter your views, if you suspect political bias has caused you to be censored or silenced online, we want to hear about it!” the White House wrote on its official Twitter account, which has 18.5 million followers.
The White House launched a site with a form for people to fill out if they suspect they’re being punished for being conservative.
“SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS should advance FREEDOM OF SPEECH,” the site reads. “Yet too many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently reported for unclear ‘violations’ of user policies.”
“No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump,” the site says.
The page includes a 16-part questionnaire that lets users choose from a list that includes Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube. The questionnaire also asks for screenshots of any notices users received from social media sites explaining why they were suspended or banned.
And to prevent robots from jamming the site, this question is included: “One more thing, just to confirm you aren’t a robot. The Declaration of Independence was signed in what year?”
Trump has repeatedly complained about Twitter, calling the site “very discriminatory.”
“The best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump.” @MariaBartiromo So true, but they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list. Big complaints from many people. Different names-over 100 M…” he wrote on Twitter last month.
“….But should be much higher than that if Twitter wasn’t playing their political games. No wonder Congress wants to get involved – and they should. Must be more, and fairer, companies to get out the WORD!” he wrote.
Trump has also called out social media sites for “shadow banning,” where users’ content is blocked or partially blocked even though they are not notified.
“Twitter ‘SHADOW BANNING’ prominent Republicans,” Trump wrote on Twitter last month. “Not good. We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints.”