Trump finds a new enemy: Twitter

[Carmen Elsa Irarragorri Wyland]

Trump finds a new enemy: Twitter

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to strongly regulate or close down social media platforms he deems unfriendly to conservatives, escalating a war with Silicon Valley a day after Twitter for the first time warned that Trump was posting false claims, about mail-in voting.

Trump's attacks came as Twitter faced competing pressures from liberals, some of whom want Trump banned from his favorite platform for deliberately spreading misinformation, and from Trump supporters who say social media companies discriminate against them.

Trump's threat to muzzle a private company as retaliation for its corporate policy marks another shattering of traditional norms in the White House, especially for Republicans who generally oppose regulation.

Yet like many of Trump's threats on Twitter and elsewhere, this one appears mostly about political posturing. It comes as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 is likely to pass 100,000, or more than the total number of Americans killed in both the Vietnam and Korean wars.

The First Amendment bars the government from restricting speech, but it does not prohibit private companies from imposing restrictions.

And unlike television stations and networks that rely on government-issued broadcast licenses, the internet lacks a so-called fairness doctrine, a loosely enforced requirement that promotes ideological balance.

Trump has more than 80 million followers on Twitter and has used his reach to dominate the news cycle and public discourse since he entered politics, making his threat to shutter the platform even more unlikely.

But Trump enjoys a headline-grabbing fight, even with those most helpful to him. He has lambasted Fox News, former members of his administration and senior Republican lawmakers at times, either out of anger or to keep them in line.

Fittingly, the president's threats against Twitter were delivered on the platform itself, in a series of morning tweets.

"Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!" he wrote.

[Carmen Elsa Irarragorri Wyland]

Well, the problem with him, as far as I can tell is that he does not know what he is doing and how to run a country, either...Is a trial and error situation...

And who suffers for all of that?