This afternoon, the White House launched a new online portal that will allow users who have been banned or suspended from social media platforms to share their stories with the White House.
The portal, called the "Tech Bias Story Sharing Tool,"asks users if any social media platform - Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, or any other - has taken action against the user's account. The user is given an opportunity to explain the circumstances of their banning, link to the offending post or tweet, and include any screenshots of emails from the social media platforms explaining why they took adverse action against the user's account.
The portal's home page includes a message from the White House:
"SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS should advance FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Yet too many Americans have seen their accounts suspended, banned, or fraudulently reported for unclear 'violations' of user policies. No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump."
This is the first official action from the White House to deal with the epidemic of censorship on social media platforms. President Trump recently tweeted that his team was "monitoring" censorship on social media platforms. This form should give the White House the ability to collect a significant amount of data about the rampant censorship by Facebook and Twitter. Whether they will use this data to take executive action, or make a push for new legislation, remains to be seen.
