Trump Defends Controversial ‘Shooting’ Tweet, And White House Claims Twitter Admits Mistake
by Tommy BeerTOPLINE
The Trump White House spent Friday responding to a torrent of criticism over a tweet flagged by Twitter as violating its rules in which President Trump appeared to threaten violence against rioters in Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd. In a confusing post, the White House claimed that Twitter admitted the president’s tweet “does not violate any Twitter rules.”
KEY FACTS
Thursday night's demonstrations, protesting police brutality following the death of George Floyd, led to President Trump threatening to send in the military.
Early Friday morning, Trump tweeted that “THUGS” were dishonoring the memory of Floyd, and that the government was willing and able to send in the U.S. military.
“When the looting starts, the shooting starts,” Trump wrote.
Twitter overlaid a warning on the tweet, requiring users to click through to read it, stating: "We've taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts."
On Friday afternoon, Trump attempted to explain himself, tweeting, “Looting leads to shooting, and that’s why a man was shot and killed in Minneapolis on Wednesday night - or look at what just happened in Louisville with 7 people shot. … It was spoken as a fact, not as a statement… nobody should have any problem with this other than the haters.”
The official White House Twitter account then claimed that Twitter “admitted that the very tweet they are censoring does not violate any Twitter rules.”
In the post, the White House included a picture of what appeared to be a convoluted correspondence sent directly from Twitter.
Twitter has yet to respond to the White House's claims.
Critical quote:
"They have had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences," Trump claimed on Thursday. "We are fed up with it."
Tangent:
The phrase the president tweeted, "When the looting starts, the shooting starts," was infamously used in 1967 by Walter Headley, a Miami police chief, in justifying his “get tough” policy as having prevented unrest in the city. Headly added, "We don't mind being accused of police brutality."
Key Background:
The contentious online encounter between the president and Twitter comes one day after Trump signed an executive order aimed at restricting the liability protections of social media companies. The order targets a federal regulation known as Section 230, which gives companies like Facebook and Twitter immunity against being sued over the content that appears on their sites from users. Earlier Friday afternoon, the White House account posted: "The President did not glorify violence. He clearly condemned it. @Jack and Twitter's biased, bad-faith "fact-checkers" have made it clear: Twitter is a publisher, not a platform."