Twitter Flags Trump Tweet About Shooting Looters

Twitter flagged another presidential tweet overnight as Donald Trump signaled to Minnesota governor that looters, who he called "thugs," could be shot, leading the President to repeat his call for regulating social media. 

The state has been rocked by protests over the death of a black man in police custody. Cell phone footage shows an apparently compliant and subdued man pleading for his life as an officer kneels on his neck. 

The social media platform said the tweet violated its policy about glorifying violence, but left the tweet (below) accessible, saying that would be in the public interest: 

[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266231100780744704[/embed]

While the President's Tweet clearly appeared to be about the use of force against protestors, the President followed up later Friday with a Tweet saying that wasn't what he meant, and only "troublemakers" and "haters" would suggest that.

[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266434153932894208[/embed]

The President signed an executive order Thursday (May 29) in an effort to regulate Twitter and other social media platforms generally because of perceived anti-conservative bias and specifically because twitter had flagged his Tweets about mail-in ballots being a fraud and an opportunity for his opponents to steal the upcoming election. 

The latest twitter flagging escalated the issue, with the President tweeting early Friday morning: 

[embed]https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266326065833824257[/embed]

John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.