(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
You can now complain about online political bias directly to the White House.
On Wednesday, the Trump administration launched a new tool that lets users report when they think a social media platform has censored, suspended or banned their activities due to their political opinions.
"No matter your views, if you suspect political bias caused such an action to be taken against you, share your story with President Trump," the White House said in tweet promoting the new site.
The Trump Administration is fighting for free speech online.
No matter your views, if you suspect political bias has caused you to be censored or silenced online, we want to hear about it! https://t.co/9lc0cqUhuf pic.twitter.com/J8ICbx42dz — The White House (@WhiteHouse) May 15, 2019
Earlier this month, Trump tweeted out he was "continuing to monitor the censorship" of American citizens, a day after Facebook decided to ban several right-wing figures, including Alex Jones, Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer on claims they tried to incite violence or spread hate.
"It's getting worse and worse for Conservatives on social media!" the President said in a separate tweet, which also claimed Facebook had mistreated two conservative video bloggers known as "Diamond and Silk." A month earlier, Trump met face-to-face with Twitter's CEO after also accusing the service of discriminating against his supporters.
The President's new site at "Wh.gov/techbias," states that "social media platforms should advance freedom of speech." However, the site does ask for a lot of personal information, including first and last name, email address, whether you're a US citizen and for your phone number.
It then goes on to ask which social media platforms allegedly took action against your account, and to paste a link to your personal profile. The site then asks for the specific post that triggered the social media service to act, along with any screenshots you'd like to include.
How the White House intends on using the submitted complaints isn't totally clear. But the data may provide extra ammunition in the event the President calls for changes to how social media companies moderate content. The same website will also potentially provide plenty of data to help the Trump administration target prospective voters.
At the end of the submission process, the site asks whether you'd like to be added to the White House's email newsletter to keep you updated on "President Trump's fight for free speech." You're then told to sign off on a user agreement that lets the US government use, edit, display and publish any of the content you submitted.