Twitter CEO

Trump met with Twitter CEO amid bias complaints

By CRISTIANO LIMA

President Donald Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey at the White House today, hours after he took to Twitter to accuse the company of discriminating against him.

Ahead of the meeting, Trump, a prolific Twitter user, repeated allegations that his favorite social media platform stifles conservative speech, accusing it of playing “political games."

“They don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list,” Trump said in a pair of tweets, adding: “No wonder Congress wants to get involved - and they should. Must be more, and fairer, companies to get out the WORD!”

Those comments echo complaints by a number of Republicans, who've alleged that Twitter and other top tech firms routinely stifle conservative content. The companies deny any political bias.

Trump later tweeted that he had a "Great meeting" with Dorsey, writing, "Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general. Look forward to keeping an open dialogue!"

The post was accompanied by a picture of the face-to-face, which took place in the Oval Office. White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino, who helps run Trump's Twitter feed, also appears in the image.

According to a Twitter spokesperson, Trump and Dorsey met at the president's invitation and discussed the company's efforts to protect "the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis." Twitter legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde was also in attendance, the spokesperson said.

Online platforms have faced intense pressure from Washington to curb election-related misinformation since 2016, when Russian trolls carried out a wide-reaching social media campaign to sow discord and stoke political divisions on the internet. And Dorsey has broadly pledged to improve the "health" of conversation on Twitter, a metric he's said can be measured by factors like the variety of viewpoints expressed and users' receptivity to differing views.

Lawmakers have also called on tech companies to step up their efforts to curb the sale of opioids online. One Democratic lawmaker, Sen. Joe Manchin (W.Va.), has floated modifying liability protections to hold social media platforms culpable for the sale of the drugs on their platforms.