Trump and Giuliani blast Facebook, Twitter over alleged censorship and bias for Biden: ‘It’s a fix’
Facebook and Twitter may not be on the ballot, but they’re getting dragged into the presidential election in its final hours.
The recurring theme from the Trump campaign: Blame Big Tech.
On Tuesday, President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani gave an interview to Russian state media outlet RT in which he accused tech companies of being “maniacally anti-Trump” and censoring information about Hunter Biden’s business dealings to tip the election to former Vice President Joe Biden. Giuliani also claimed the Democratic party is under Silicon Valley’s thumb.
“They don’t do any censorship to favor Trump. The censorship is against Trump and to elect the guy they control, Joe Biden,” Giuliani said.
His comments echoed Trump’s at a rally on Election Day eve in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Attacking Big Tech, he called Twitter “phony guys who fix the elections.”
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Fueling his ire was the decision by Facebook and Twitter to throttle the spread of the New York Post’s coverage of Hunter Biden’s business dealings. Trump also said Monday that the online platforms promote unflattering media coverage of his administration.
“It’s a fix,” he said.
The salvos are the latest in a blistering broadside against Big Tech, which Trump accuses of favoring his Democratic challenger and making decisions out of a longstanding bias against conservatives.
Senate Republicans last week grilled the heads of Facebook, Twitter and Google on how they police content on their platforms, accusing them of politically motivated bias and suppression, and warning them of upcoming challenges to decades-old legal protections that shield them from liability for what users post on their platforms.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter’s Jack Dorsey and Google’s Sundar Pichai defended their companies against heavy criticism from Republican lawmakers over the moderation of conservatives’ posts including Trump before the Senate Commerce Committee. Republicans presented no evidence of systematic bias or censorship.
Conservatives have complained for years that social media companies systematically silence the political speech of right-leaning users despite consistent evidence that conservative voices and viewpoints dominate the conversation on these platforms.
Tech leaders deny any partisanship, saying their policies strike a balance between allowing users to freely express themselves and keeping hate, abuse and misinformation off their platforms.
