"He used to come to the White House to kiss my a** and I'd say, ‘Oh, that's nice. I have the head of Facebook coming with his lovely wife [Priscilla Chan]’. They come and they'd have dinner with me in the White House. And then you see what they do about me and about Republicans and it's just sort of crazy. But that's the way the world works", the former president said.
"You know when I went on to Twitter like 12 years ago, [it] was a failed operation. And it became successful and a lot of people said I had a lot to do with it. When they took me off, I had way over 100 million people. And then if you add Facebook and everything else, it's over 200 million people. That's a lot. You go from 200 million people to nothing overnight. Twitter has become a very boring place. I don't wanna be like, bragging or anything, but people are saying it's become very boring", he said.
Accusations and Subsequent Banning
They point to the statements he made on the coronavirus pandemic, accusing him of downplaying the threat of the disease, promoting controversial treatments, as well as questioning the efficacy of face masks and lockdowns, which were proved by several international studies.
Social media platforms have flagged Trump’s posts as containing misinformation, hid and even removed them. Ex-POTUS, in turn, has accused Big Tech of silencing conservative voices. The latest example is the New York Post exposé on Hunter Biden. The article alleged that the elder Biden was involved in his son's business dealings overseas during his time as vice president, which the newspaper said might be interpreted as a conflict of interest.
Trump claimed the article would have had a profound impact on the presidential race had social media not "silenced" it. Earlier this year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey admitted that the company made a "total mistake" when it prohibited its users from sharing the story.
In January, Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s account, while Facebook banned itfor several years. The ban came in response to the storming of the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters, which resulted in the deaths of four protesters and one police officer. For two months Trump claimed, without any evidence, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen by the Democrats, and on the day the results of the race were to be certified, he held a rally during which he said the following:
"You are the people that built this nation", Trump told the rally. "You have to get your people to fight. And if they don't fight, we have to primary the hell out of the ones that don't fight. We primary them - we're going to let you know who they are."
Following the incident, Democrats accused Trump of inciting an "insurrection" and introduced an impeachment article against him. The Republican POTUS became the first US president to be impeached twice. The four-day trial ended with lawmakers acquitting Trump.
As mentioned earlier, in July, Donald Trump filed a lawsuit against Google, Twitter and Facebook accusing them of "censorship".
"We are demanding an end to the shadow-banning, a stop to the silencing, and a stop to the blacklisting, banishing, and canceling that you know so well", he said while announcing the move.