Trump says he's 'looking into' Facebook's purge of incendiary conservative personalities
Facebook has come under a lot of scrutiny in the past year, mostly because many people believe the company acted carelessly when handling private data. You can now add President Trump to the website's detractors.
But Trump isn't complaining about privacy matters. Instead, he's riled up by the fact that Facebook purged the accounts of numerous conservative commentators, including Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Laura Loomer. Trump was particularly angered by the bannings of James Woods and Paul Joseph Watson, an InfoWars personality.
Facebook, though, says the bans had little to do with political ideology. "We've always banned individuals or organizations that promote or engage in violence and hate," a company spokesperson told CNN Business. There was some action behind those words, as well. Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam, who is considered to be a leftist, was also among the banned accounts.
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Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.
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