President Trump threatens social media platforms with new regulation

Threats stem from new Twitter policy - NBC's Mark Barger reports

WASHINGTON, D.C. (KYMA, KECY/NBC News) - President Donald Trump declined comment as he departed the White House Wednesday for the SpaceX launch in Florida.

But his Tuesday evening Tweets had already spoken volumes. Trump took aim at Twitter, accusing the company of interfering with the 2020 Presidential election and completely stifling free speech. He said, as President, he will not allow it to happen.

It's a reaction to Twitter slapping a "Fact Check" label on two of the President's Tweets, including one saying mail-in ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent.

A message added by Twitter pointed readers to links with articles about the unsubstantiated claim.

"My first reaction to Twitter would be to who they have doing the fact check? I would think it would be pretty impossible to find somebody who is nonpartisan." said Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA.)

Wednesday morning, Trump followed up writing:

The President offer no details on the "big action."

"Point blank, no. He's not going to shut down social media. But there are things the U.S. government conceivably could do in this space." said Tony Romm, a Tech Policy Reporter for the Washington Post.

Romm says that would require a rollback of liability protections for social media companies over the content posted by their users.

"That would be a considerable process in the making. It's not as simple as flipping the off switch on Twitter."

Meaning, there's more to come on the President's social media megaphone.

In a statement Twitter defended the fact-checking message on the President's Tweet saying in part:

"These Tweets contain potentially misleading information about voting processes and have been labeled to provide additional context around mail-in ballots. This decision is in line with the approach we shared earlier this month."

Twitter statement on Presidential Tweets