WASHINGTON — Less than 12 hours after complaining that Twitter doesn’t “treat me well as a Republican,” President Trump met with the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey, and indicated that they would be “keeping an open dialogue.”
“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!” Trump wrote on Twitter on Tuesday, also posting a photo of their meeting.
Trump earlier on Tuesday had groused about Twitter in a tweet. He first quoted Maria Bartiromo that “the best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump,” then complained about the loss of followers.
“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 …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!”
Trump and other Republicans have accused Twitter, Facebook and Google of bias in how they treat rightward content and users, although the companies have rejected those claims. When he testified on Capitol Hill last year, Dorsey said Twitter “does not use political ideology to make any decisions, whether related to ranking content on our service or how we enforce our rules.”
After the White House meeting, a Twitter spokesperson said, “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 their public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis.”