WASHINGTON (AP) – President Donald Trump threatened social media companies with new regulation or even shuttering on Wednesday after Twitter added fact checks to two of his tweets. He turned to his Twitter account – where else? — to tweet his threats.
The president can’t unilaterally regulate or close the companies, and any effort would likely require action by Congress. His administration shelved a proposed executive order empowering the Federal Communications Commission to regulate technology companies, citing concerns it wouldn’t pass legal muster. But that didn’t stop Trump from angrily issuing strong warnings.
Trump, the historically prolific tweeter of political barbs and blasts, claimed on Twitter early Wednesday that tech giants “silence conservative voices.”
“We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen,” he tweeted. Later, also on Twitter, he threatened, “Big Action to follow.”
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.”