Tech vs Trump: The Great Battle of Our Time Has Begun

In the 1962 Japanese sci-fi classic King Kong vs Godzilla, the two giant monsters fight to a stalemate atop Mount Fuji. I have been wondering for some time when the two giants of American social media would square up for what promises to be a comparably brutal battle. Finally, it began last month — and where else but on Twitter?

‘Facebook was always anti-Trump,’ tweeted the President of the United States on 27 September. Mark Zuckerberg shot back hours later (on Facebook, of course): ‘Trump says Facebook is against him. Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.’

A platform for all ideas? Well, maybe. Others see Facebook differently. As Zuckerberg’s response to Trump acknowledged, the President is not alone in criticising him. The various inquiries into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election are turning up much that is awkward, notably that Russia bought around 3,000 Facebook ads designed to spread politically divisive posts to Americans before and after the election, as well as to promote inflammatory political protests on issues such as Muslim immigration.