Trump meets with Twitter CEO amid bias complaints

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says he had a "great meeting" Tuesday with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey after bashing the company profusely earlier in the day.

Trump and some Republicans in Congress have complained that social media giants are biased against Republicans, something the companies have rejected as untrue.

Trump gave his readout of the meeting on Twitter, writing: "Lots of subjects discussed regarding their platform, and the world of social media in general. Look forward to keeping an open dialogue!"

While some tech company executives may lean liberal, they have long asserted that their products are without political bias.

Trump had tweeted earlier Tuesday that Twitter didn’t treat him well and that he would have more followers “if Twitter wasn’t playing their political games.”

“No wonder Congress wants to get involved — and they should,” he said.

As of Tuesday morning, Trump had 59.9 million Twitter followers, making him the 13th most-tracked user on the social media network behind individuals including former President Barack Obama and singers Katy Perry and Taylor Swift. But the president has repeatedly voiced his displeasure with an effort by Twitter last year to remove tens of millions of suspicious accounts, with the company saying it was trying to help combat manipulative and abusive content by deleting fake profiles.

The president lost hundreds of thousands of followers in the purge, but so did many of the company’s most-visible users, including Dorsey, who said he lost about 200,000 followers as part of the initiative.

“Jack had a constructive meeting with the president of the United States today at the president’s invitation,” Twitter’s spokesperson said. “They discussed Twitter’s commitment to protecting the health of the public conversation ahead of the 2020 U.S. elections and efforts underway to respond to the opioid crisis.”

This article contains information from Bloomberg News.