Speaking at a press conference on social media censorship, President Donald Trump said he'd love nothing more than to delete his 49 million-follower Twitter account...if the press were fair.
Have you given any consideration to deleting your account and just walking away from this platform you've been so critical of?" a reporter asked.
“Well you know, if you weren't fake, I wouldn't even think about it. I would do that in a heartbeat...if there was a fair press in this country, I would do that in a heartbeat. There’s nothing I’d rather do than get rid of my whole Twitter account," Trump said.
"But I'm able to get to, I guess it's 186 million people when you add up all the different accounts, if you add Facebook and Instagram," he continued. "It's a lot of people. And that's more than the media companies have, frankly. By a lot."
"So I'm able to refute the news, and that's really important," Trump said.
The president announced earlier this week he'd be taking executive action against social media companies who censor certain voices after Twitter added a "fact-check" feature to some of his tweets, which they've deemed to be false or misleading. The icon has been added to Trump's posts alleging that a mail-in voting system would be open to rampant fraud and abuse, as well as tweets insinuating that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough may have been involved in the accidental death of a former intern years ago.
"Currently social media giants like Twitter received unprecedented liability shield based on the theory that they are a neutral platform, which they are not," Trump said Thursday, "They are not going to have that shield" accusing Twitter and other social media giants of "political activism."
"If it were legal, if it could be legally shut down, I would do it," Trump said of Twitter.
Trump said his order will strip the liability shield from social media platforms that cross the line into editorialization or censorship. He also accused social media companies of cornering the market on news in "what's tantamount to a monopoly," saying he's instructed federal agencies to work with states to apply ant-monopoly laws, adding that he will also order a ban on any taxpayer dollars being spent on social media platforms that censor or restrict free speech.
(Cover Photo: Gage Skidmore)