Threatens to 'strongly regulate' or 'close down' social platforms after Twitter fact-check

On May 26, 2020, Twitter for the first time appended fact-check labels to two of President Trump's tweets making unsupported claims about mail-in voting fraud. Trump responded by accusing the company of 'stifling FREE SPEECH' and, the next morning, threatened that the government would 'strongly regulate, or close them down.' Critics noted the threat targeted a private company for correcting his false statements, using state power as retaliation against a fact-checker. The clash directly preceded his executive order two days later.

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen." Quote verified against source