Trump Vows To Dismantle ‘Censorship Cartel’ If He’s Re-Elected—An Apparent Nod To Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’ Release

Topline

Former President Donald Trump on Thursday promised to upend all forms of social media content moderation if he’s re-elected, in what he framed as a bid to “reclaim the right to free speech” while describing a plan that seems targeted at the previous management of Twitter, whose new owner Elon Musk has become a recent ally to the right.

Key Facts

In a seven-minute video posted on Truth Social, Trump said if he’s re-elected in 2024, he would “shatter the left-wing censorship regime” by banning any federal agency from “colluding with” businesses, organizations or people who attempt to censor any forms of speech.

Trump also said he would order the Justice Department to investigate all forms of censorship and revoke federal funding for nonprofits, colleges and universities that engage in content moderation, including flagging misinformation and disinformation.

The former president called on Congress to take immediate action toward executing his planned investigation by issuing “letters of preservation” to the Biden Administration and big tech companies ordering them not to destroy evidence of practices he called censorship.

In promoting his agenda, Trump highlighted “bombshell reports” he said “have confirmed that a sinister group” of “Silicon Valley tyrants,” among others, colluded to “silence the American people,” an apparent nod to Musk’s release of internal Twitter documents that show how the company made content moderation decisions prior to Musk’s ownership.

Key Background

Trump has frequently taken aim at social media sites for supposed bias against conservatives, at one point filing lawsuits against Twitter and Facebook for banning him in the wake of the January 6 riot. But earlier this month, journalists working with Musk released internal Twitter documents that laid out discussions about banning Trump from the platform, and showed how the company decided to remove a New York Post story detailing the contents of a laptop belonging to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in the weeks before the 2020 election. Trump has claimed—citing extremely thin evidence—the Post story proved the younger Biden’s business dealings with a Ukrainian energy company constituted corruption by his father while he was serving as vice president. While the Twitter documents did not offer any groundbreaking new information, they showed how company officials speculated about whether the laptop’s reveal was a product of Russian hacking that violated its anti-hacking policies. In the wake of the files’ release, Trump suggested parts of the Constitution should be disbanded so he can return to office. He also called the Twitter documents “a really big story about Twitter and various forms of government fraud,” and claimed “Big Tech Companies” coordinated with “the DNC, & the Democrat Party” to engage in “MASSIVE & WIDESPREAD FRAUD & DECEPTION.”

Tangent

Trump’s attack on social media companies’ moderation practices comes as Musk, who has said he would support Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over Trump for president in 2024, has also sought to scale back Twitter’s content policies. Musk reinstated Trump’s account, along with those of others on the right, including Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), shortly after taking ownership in October. He has also laid off thousands of employees, thinned the ranks of Twitter’s content moderation teams and he recently dissolved Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council. Hundreds of other Twitter content moderators fled the company in the wake of Musk’s takeover, citing the loosened restrictions, which included a rollback of Twitter’s Covid-19 misinformation policy. The moves have further aligned Musk with the right–and have boosted claims made by Trump that the company hurt his 2020 re-election bid by removing misleading content that appealed to his base.

Further Reading

Trump Backtracks On Calling For ‘Termination’ Of Constitution Following Backlash (Forbes)

DeSantis Surges Over Trump Among GOP By Double-Digit Margins, Poll Finds (Forbes)

Musk’s ‘Twitter Files’: Internal Hunter Biden Debate Revealed With Much Hype But No Bombshells (Forbes)