Donald Trump signs executive order to curtail social media firms amid fact-checking row with Twitter

Donald Trump has signed an executive order aimed at curbing protections for social media giants, amid an ongoing row with Twitter over the fact-checking of his posts.

The US President, as he prepared to sign the order, said the fact checks were "editorial decisions" by Twitter and amounted to political activism.

He and his allies, who rely heavily on Twitter to attack their enemies, have long accused the tech giants of targeting conservatives on social media by fact-checking them or removing their posts.

"We're fed up with it," President Trump said on Thursday, claiming the order would uphold freedom of speech.

It directs executive branch agencies to ask independent rule-making agencies to study whether they can place new regulations on the companies.

"They've had unchecked power to censor, restrict, edit, shape, hide, alter virtually any form of communication between private citizens or large public audiences," President Trump said of social media companies as he prepared to sign the order.

"There is no precedent in American history for so small a number of corporations to control so large a sphere of human interaction."

President Trump and his campaign reacted after Twitter added a warning phrase to two of his tweets that called mail-in ballots "fraudulent" and predicted "mail boxes will be robbed".

Under the tweets, there is now a link reading "Get the facts about mail-in ballots" that guides users to a page with fact checks and news stories about President Trump's unsubstantiated claims.

Mr Trump accused Twitter of interfering in the 2020 presidential election" and declared "as president, I will not allow this to happen".

His campaign manager, Brad Parscale, said Twitter's "clear political bias" had led the campaign to pull "all our advertising from Twitter months ago".

In fact, Twitter has banned political advertising since last November.

Late on Wednesday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted: "We'll continue to point out incorrect or disputed information about elections globally."

Mr Dorsey added: "This does not make us an 'arbiter of truth.' Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves."

On the other hand, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Fox News his platform has "a different policy, I think, than Twitter on this".

"I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," he said.

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