Trump threatens social media with new regulation after Twitter fact-checked him

Claiming tech giants "silence conservative voices,ÔÇØ Trump tweeted, "We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen.ÔÇØ And he repeated his unsubstantiated claim - which sparked his latest showdown with Silicon Valley - that expanding mail-in voting "would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots.ÔÇØ

Trump and his campaign angrily lashed out Tuesday after Twitter added a warning phrase to two Trump tweets that called mail-in ballots "fraudulentÔÇØ and predicted that "mailboxes will be robbed,ÔÇØ among other things. Under the tweets, there is now a link reading "Get the facts about mail-in ballotsÔÇØ that guides users to a Twitter "momentsÔÇØ page with fact checks and news stories about Trump's unsubstantiated claims.

Trump replied on Twitter, accusing the platform of "interfering in the 2020 Presidential ElectionÔÇØ and insisting that "as president, I will not allow this to happen.ÔÇØ His 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter's "clear political biasÔÇØ had led the campaign to pull "all our advertising from Twitter months ago.ÔÇØ Twitter has banned all political advertising since last November.

Trump did not explain his threat Wednesday, and the call to expand regulation appeared to fly in the face of long-held conservative principles on deregulation. But some Trump allies, who have alleged bias on the part of tech companies, have questioned whether platforms like Twitter and Facebook should continue to enjoy liability protections as "platformsÔÇØ under federal law - or be treated more like publishers, which could face lawsuits over content.

The protections have been credited with allowing the unfettered growth of the internet for more than two decades, but now some Trump allies are advocating that social media companies face more scrutiny. "Big tech gets a huge handout from the federal government,ÔÇØ Republican Sen. Josh Hawley told Fox News.

"They get this special immunity, this special immunity from suits and from liability that's worth billions of dollars to them every year. Why are they getting subsidized by federal taxpayers to censor conservatives, to censor people critical of China.ÔÇØ'

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