Trump puts social media on notice after summit

US President Trump has made it clear that he considers social media censorship to be a major concern that may require fresh legislation and regulation.

As we previously reported, this unprecedented convention of social media influencers at the White House that took place yesterday was already causing controversy before it had even taken place. Many commentators were concerned by the apparent fact that most of the people invited were conspicuous Trump supporters.

Judging by the tweet Trump has pinned to the top of his Twitter account, the premise for the social media summit was Trump’s concern about independent voices being censored by the major social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. “Each of you is fulfilling a vital role in our nation,” said Trump. “You’re challenging the media gatekeepers and the corporate censors to bring the facts straight to the American people.

“Together you reach more people than any television broadcast network by far. Free Speech is a bedrock of American life. Our constitutional rights must be fiercely protected and today I’m directing my administration to explore regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech and the free speech rights of all Americans. We hope to see transparency, more accountability and more freedom.”

The specifics of what was discussed are thin on the ground right now, but this is a clear shot across the bows of social media companies. Trump clearly believes there is a degree of political censorship on social media and not to his benefit. At the same time he seems to value social media as a counterbalance to the mainstream media, most of which he has been at war with for years. We have seen no public response from any of the social media giants and they would be wise to do so with care. It seems inevitable that there will be increased regulatory oversight of their censorship policies and even new laws on the matter. Bizarrely a Twitter global outage coincided precisely with the the White House gathering and Trump also took the trouble to fire a warning shot to Facebook about its Libra cryptocurrency plans, which you can see below.

Much of the mainstream media seems to have reacted with hostility to the event, putting ‘social media summit’ in scare quotes and characterising the attendees as ‘right wing’. To be fair any media that Trump has dismissed as ‘fake news’ (most of it) did have fairly good reason to feel provoked if you look at the Trump Twitter thread below, send immediately in advance of the summit. Underneath we’ll leave you with the full video of Trump’s speech at the event to make your own mind up about the relevance and utility of the event.