Trump Accuses Twitter of Bias, Meets With CEO Hours Later

Jack Dorsey met with POTUS at Trump's invitation
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 23, 2019 5:17 PM CDT
Trump Accuses Twitter of Bias, Meets With CEO Hours Later
President Donald Trump speaks with children on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Monday, April 22, 2019, during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.   (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

During President Trump's latest Twitter rampage early Tuesday, he accused the social media platform of being biased against conservatives. Within hours, he was praising Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after meeting with him personally. The details:

  • Trump's first tweets: "'The best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump.' @MariaBartiromo So true, but they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list. Big complaints from many people. Different names-over 100 M.....," he wrote, continuing, ".....But should be much higher than that if Twitter wasn’t playing their political games. No wonder Congress wants to get involved - and they should. Must be more, and fairer, companies to get out the WORD!"

  • And then: Six tweets and about nine and a half hours later, the POTUS posted a picture of himself meeting with Dorsey and others and wrote: "Great meeting this afternoon at the @WhiteHouse with @Jack from @Twitter. Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general. Look forward to keeping an open dialogue!"
  • What Dorsey had to say: A Twitter spokesperson issued a statement to CNN reading, "Jack had a constructive meeting with the President of the United States today at the president's invitation. They discussed Twitter's commitment to protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 US elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis."
  • Who else attended: Dan Scavino, White House director of social media who often posts for Trump on Twitter, and Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's head of legal, policy, and trust & safety.
  • How long it lasted: Half an hour, per Vice, which first reported news of the meeting.
  • More from Twitter: According to internal emails obtained by Vice, Twitter anticipated the meeting would be about "the health of the public conversation on Twitter." Dorsey chimed in: "As you know, I believe that conversation, not silence, bridges gaps and drives towards solutions. I have met with every world leader who has extended an invitation to me, and I believe the discussions have been productive, and the outcomes meaningful."
  • But: Dorsey also acknowledged his move might be controversial. "Some of you will be very supportive of our meeting [with] the president, and some of you might feel we shouldn’t take this meeting at all," he wrote in the email thread. "In the end, I believe it’s important to meet heads of state in order to listen, share our principles and our ideas."
(You may recall that Dorsey was once blocked from a Trump tech summit.)

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