Trump has an estimated 61 million followers
on Twitter. He has accused Twitter of making it
“very hard for people to join me” and “very much
harder for me to get out the message.”
Thursday’s conference raised questions about
whether Trump would use the forum to signal
tough actions ahead by his administration
against the big companies in the areas of
competition and privacy.
Big tech companies already are under
closer scrutiny than ever by regulators and
in Congress following a stream of scandals
including Facebook’s lapses opening the
personal data of millions of users to Trump’s
2016 campaign. A bipartisan push for new data
privacy legislation has emerged in Congress.
Regulators at the Justice Department and the
Federal Trade Commission are pursuing antitrust
investigations of Facebook, Google, Apple and
Amazon. The House Judiciary Committee has
opened a bipartisan probe of the tech giants’
market dominance.
A growing number of lawmakers and some
Democratic presidential candidates are talking
about tighter regulation of a customarily
freewheeling industry or even breaking up the
big companies.
But if Trump is looking for the participating
conservative groups to support government
action to bring the companies in line on perceived
social media bias, he may be disappointed.
Rob Bluey, vice president for communications
at the Heritage Foundation, said that “if the
government were to get involved, it would lead
to more problems.” He said market pressures can
produce positive changes.
Turning Point USA keeps a list of college
professors who it says discriminate against
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