President Donald Trump’s comments come as reports have surfaced showing the Russian government's widespread use of social media, including Twitter, to bolster the Trump administration. | Yuri Gripas-Pool/Getty Images White House Trump slams tech giants for 'bias' following reports Russians weaponized them to his benefit

President Donald Trump on Tuesday accused major technology and social media platforms of harboring a bias toward Democrats, accusing Twitter of dampening his following on the platform just days after the release of searing reports detailing the Russian government's use of social media to boost the president during and after his 2016 campaign.

“Facebook, Twitter and Google are so biased toward the Dems it is ridiculous! Twitter, in fact, has made it much more difficult for people to join @realDonaldTrump,” he wrote in a tweet. “They have removed many names & greatly slowed the level and speed of increase. They have acknowledged-done NOTHING!”


Conservatives have long accused tech platforms of suppressing their ideology online, allegations that companies like Facebook, Twitter and Google have denied. Google CEO Sundar Pichai faced withering questioning last week from House Republicans during testimony on Capitol Hill.

Trump’s comments suggesting that Twitter is purposefully hamstringing his following on the platform he uses prolifically come as reports have surfaced showing the Russian government's widespread use of social media, including Twitter, to bolster the Trump administration and the president's 2016 presidential campaign.

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New reports prepared for the Senate Intelligence Committee show that Russian operatives have waged a sweeping influence campaign, posting on every social media outlet from Facebook, Twitter and Google-owned YouTube to Instagram, Reddit, Tumblr and Pinterest.

The reports allege that Russian troll farms carried out their influence campaign not only during the 2016 election, but into the 2018 midterm cycle as well, seeking “to undermine citizens’ trust in government, exploit societal fractures, create distrust in the information environment, blur the lines between reality and fiction, undermine trust among communities, and erode confidence in the democratic process," according to one of the reports.

The reports, and now Trump’s comments, put tech giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google under fire from all sides of the political spectrum, after Facebook last week announced yet another security breach on the platform, the latest in a number of data privacy scandals to rock the company in recent years.

And while the president is not wrong in noting that his number of Twitter followers has decreased, the site suggested the decrease was due to a purge of bot accounts from its service earlier this year "to remove fake accounts to prevent malicious behavior."

"Many prominent accounts have seen follower counts drop" following the purges, a Twitter spokesperson said, "but the result is higher confidence that the followers they have are real, engaged people."

In the most recent purge of inactive and suspected fake accounts this summer, Trump saw his following dip by more than 300,000 — a noticeable decrease but significantly less than former President Barack Obama, who saw his follower count fall by more than two million.