- “That is a campaign violation. What they are doing is a massive campaign violation. When you look at what they did,” says President Trump.
In mid-January, then-outgoing US President Donald Trump accused Big Tech companies of dividing the country, shortly after Facebook and Twitter banned the now ex-POTUS from their platforms for allegedly encouraging the deadly 6 January attack on the Capitol building.
Former US President Donald Trump has argued that the nation’s antitrust bodies should scrutinise what he described as monopolistic actions by Big Tech firms like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Google toward American political discourse.
In an exclusive interview with Fox’s Sean Hannity on Friday, Trump dubbed Twitter a “really boring” platform that he said is “no good anymore”.
When asked about CNN technical director Charles Chester’s recent revelations about the US news network’s mission to “get Trump out”, the ex-POTUS called them “incredible”.
“That is a campaign violation. What they are doing is a massive campaign violation. When you look at what they did”, he added.
The remarks come as Twitter is under fire for permanently suspending conservative watchdog Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe from the platform over his purported use of “fake accounts” on the platform amid the watchdog’s campaign “Expose CNN”.
Part of the campaign was a clip released by Project Veritas last week that appeared to show CNN technical director Charles Chester claiming his news outlet’s “focus” during the 2020 election campaign was to “get [then-US President Donald] Trump out of office”.
A Twitter spokesperson argued that the footage was out of sync with the platform’s policy, which stipulates that “you can’t mislead others on Twitter by operating fake accounts”, and “you can’t artificially amplify or disrupt conversations through the use of multiple accounts”.
O’Keefe vehemently denied the allegations, threatening to sue the social network for defamation as Twitter declined to comment on what fake accounts the Project Veritas founder ostensibly used.
The video with Chester was released a few months after Trump accused Big Tech of “doing a horrible thing for our country and to our country”, adding that he believes “it’s going to be a catastrophic mistake for them”.
“They’re dividing and divisive”, Trump told reporters in mid-January.
He spoke days after Twitter and Facebook banned the-then outgoing POTUS from their platforms for inciting the deadly Capitol riots, allegations Trump vehemently denied. The ban has been harshly criticised by Republicans as violating constitutional freedom of speech rights.
Five people were killed after scores of Trump supporters besieged the Capitol on 6 January, in an attempt to prevent the certification of the 3 November 2020 election victory by Democrat Joe Biden.
