By Ryan Tracy
WASHINGTON -- A "Social Media Summit" at the White House this
week will offer a platform for supporters of President Trump who
say they face censorship by left-tilting Big Tech -- and a preview
of a likely theme in Mr. Trump's re-election campaign.
Attendees include the Claremont Institute think tank, media
company Prager University and the Media Research Center, a
nonprofit critical of national news organizations. Also expected to
attend are more familiar Washington conservatives, including the
Heritage Foundation.
Not on the guest list: social-media giant Facebook Inc., which
said it didn't get an invitation. Twitter Inc. and Alphabet Inc.,
which owns YouTube and Google, also weren't invited, according to
people familiar with the situation.
The firms declined to comment on the event, but have said in the
past that they seek to police harmful or fake content without
regard to politics.
The invitation list for Thursday's summit suggests the event is
about Mr. Trump firing up his loudest social-media supporters, said
Paul Gallant, a policy analyst for investment bank Cowen Inc.
"It's all about 2020," Mr. Gallant said. He sees it as a stage
for Mr. Trump to tell "the base that the media and internet
companies are against us" as well as "pressuring Facebook, Twitter,
and Google to tilt content in Trump's direction."
The event grew out of complaints the White House has received
about bias online, a spokesman said Thursday.
"Earlier this year the White House launched a tool to allow
Americans, regardless of their political views, to share how they
have been affected by bias online," said the spokesman, Judd Deere.
"After receiving thousands of responses, the President wants to
engage directly with these digital leaders in a discussion on the
power of social media."
In May, the White House briefly opened an official website for
the public to share information about "action against your account"
by social-media platforms. Last month it described Thursday's event
as "a robust conversation on the opportunities and challenges of
today's online environment."
Charlie Kirk, who leads the student group Turning Point USA,
said alleged bias by social-media companies resonates with the
president's supporters, calling it "one of the top, if not the top
issue with people that I interact with on social media."
Bill Mitchell, chief executive of YourVoice Inc., will be making
his first official White House visit at the event. Like others
invitees, he says he has seen anecdotal evidence that his pro-Trump
videos and tweets should be reaching a larger audience. "We just
want a level playing field so that everybody can have free speech,"
he said.
The event has brought more media attention to Prager
University's lawsuits alleging YouTube is restricting its advocacy
videos on topics such as gun laws, said chief marketing officer
Craig Strazzeri. (A federal court dismissed Prager University's
claims last year. The firm is appealing.)
Thursday's event is being coordinated by Ory Rinat, chief
digital officer at the White House, people familiar with the matter
said.
It isn't known whether the event will lead to any concrete
policy changes or directives. Mr. Trump has hinted he wants the
government to take action against social-media companies, without
being specific. "What they are doing is wrong and possibly illegal
and a lot of things are being looked at right now," he said in a
July 1 Fox News interview.
A 1996 law protects internet services that host third-party
speech from liability for content, however, and proposals to remove
that protection aren't likely to pass Congress soon. U.S. agencies
are preparing for potential antitrust investigations of large firms
including Google, but it remains to be seen if bias concerns will
be a factor in those possible probes.
Mr. Trump "can't do much" to change the way social media
platforms operate, said Sam McGowan, an analyst at Beacon Policy
Advisers, a research firm based in Washington, D.C. "What he can do
is hold these sorts of summits...That in itself is a way to rally
Trump's base."
The limited ability of Mr. Trump to change the way social media
works was reinforced Monday when a federal appeals court ruled that
his practice of blocking some users on Twitter violates the
free-speech protections of the First Amendment.
At a June hearing hosted by the Federal Trade Commission, a
Texas official said regulators should consider using laws against
deceptive business practices to charge social-media platforms with
making false statements about neutrality.
"Are big tech companies misleading users about whether they are
truly viewpoint neutral, as they have represented?" Texas First
Assistant Attorney General Jeff Mateer asked in a presentation that
quoted the CEOs of Google, Facebook and Twitter "Evidence suggests
that [they] may not be living up to those representations."
Short of tangible action, calls to rein in tech firms could be a
political winner on the campaign trail. In a March Wall Street
Journal/NBC survey of 1,000 American adults, 54% said they weren't
satisfied with federal government regulation and oversight of
social-media companies, compared with 36% who were satisfied and
10% who weren't sure.
Write to Ryan Tracy at ryan.tracy@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 10, 2019 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOG)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024