President Donald Trump repeated his claim that tech firms are biased despite his own Twitter following of 59 million (SAUL LOEB)

Washington (AFP) – President Donald Trump stepped up claims of political bias by Big Tech firms Tuesday after one of his key congressional allies sued Twitter claiming it discriminates against conservatives.

“Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats,” Trump tweeted after news of a lawsuit filed by Republican Representative Devin Nunes seeking $250 million in damages from Twitter.

Trump returned to his familiar refrain of bias by Silicon Valley despite strong denials from the industry.

In another tweet, the president pointed to a separate incident in which his social media director Dan Scavino was temporarily blocked on Facebook.

“I will be looking into this!” Trump wrote, adding hashtag #StopTheBias.

Facebook said Scavino was briefly blocked as a result of activity detected as spam, not for any political reason, and added that it had apologized to him.

Nunes meanwhile alleged in his lawsuit filed in a Virginia state court that Twitter “shadow bans” conservatives, making their messages less visible.

He also claimed Twitter was negligent for failing to crack down on parody accounts such as “Devin Nunes’ Mom” and “Devin Nunes’ cow” which accused him of obstructing investigations into the president.

Nunes, the former Republican leader of the House probe into Russian interference in the US election, stepped aside in 2017 after being criticized for compromising the probe in visits to the White House.

Nunes, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, had sought to turn the investigation away from Russia and toward Trump’s allegations that the previous Obama administration had abused its powers by spying on the president and his advisors.

– ‘Political agenda’ –

Rancor over Nunes sharing top secret intelligence reports with Trump — but not members of his own committee — had driven the committee’s probe to a halt.

The suit echoes accusations from Trump that major internet platforms discriminate against conservatives, even though he himself has more than 59 million followers on Twitter.

Twitter declined to comment on the lawsuit, but has in the past vigorously denied claims that its platform is politically biased.

Legal analysts have largely maintained that internet platforms such as Twitter are not liable for most content posted by third parties, but the Nunes lawsuit claims Twitter was negligent and failed to enforce its own terms of service.

“Twitter let it happen because Twitter had (and has) a political agenda and motive,” the lawsuit said.

The complaint included many of the insulting tweets, including one from the Devin Nunes’ Mom account stating: “Are you trying to obstruct a federal investigation again? You come home right this instant or no more Minecraft!”

Other tweets accused the lawmaker of having white supremacist friends and distributing “disturbing inflammatory racial propaganda.”

Nunes, who represents a district in California, is a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and was accused of undermining the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 president election.

Separately, the president’s son Donald Trump Jr. wrote in the news outlet The Hill that tech firms are using a variety of tools to silence conservatives.

“Facebook appears to have deliberately tailored its algorithm to recognize the syntax and style popular among conservatives in order to ‘deboost’ that content,” he wrote.

The tech firms have consistently maintained there is no attempt to impose bias on their platforms and that conservative have large followings on social platforms.

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