Technology

Trump Jr. says he’d back a new conservative version of Facebook

Donald Trump Jr. said in a new interview that he would back a conservative version of Facebook.

“I’d love to do it. But what I prefer is, take one of the two Silicon Valley conservatives and let them start it,” Trump Jr. told Axios when asked if President Trump’s 2020 campaign might create such a platform. “And then I’d help promote the platform and be all over that.”

Trump Jr.’s comments come on the heels of a report from The New York Times that more than 100 Facebook employees are forming a group to challenge what the group’s founder, senior Facebook engineer Brian Amerige, terms the company’s “political monoculture.”

{mosads}“We are a political monoculture that’s intolerant of different views. We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology,” Amerige wrote in a post on the firm’s internal message board that was quickly taken down.

President Trump accused social media of censoring non-leftist speech in a tweet earlier this week.

The president in comments on Tuesday warned Facebook and Twitter to “be careful.”

“If you look at what is going on with Twitter and if you look at what’s going on in Facebook, they better be careful because you can’t do that to people,” Trump said at a White House event.

Alternative platforms to Facebook, which purport to allow all speech, regardless of content, exist, for example, Minds and Gab. However, their membership is minuscule compared to that of the social media giant.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg are set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Sept. 5 about the influence of social media platforms on U.S. politics.

Trump Jr. could not be immediately reached for comment.