Eric Trump says big tech ‘censoring’ his posts that don’t get many likes and it’s ‘biggest political issue in US’

President’s second son says ‘you better believe’ big tech was reducing his social media likes

Donald Trump's third child and campaign vice-president, Eric Trump, complained that social media sites had censored his posts because his likes and engagements were “down”.

Speaking as Facebook, Google and Twitter CEOs appeared in the US Senate on Wednesday, president Trump’s second son went on Fox News to allege that tech companies had censored his account, and other Republicans.

And that, according to the 36-year-old, was the “number one issue” in US politics at present.

“You better believe they also have their fingers on the dial,” he told Fox News’s Laura Ingraham, as he complained about receiving less likes on his social media posts.

“I mean, if I put something out they disagree with, the numbers are down. I can just see based on engagements and likes,” Mr Trump argued, “You can too on yours,"

Alleging that social media sites were “censoring ” right-wing commentators and politicians, Mr Trump went on to complain that Democrats had not been censored in the same way, saying “it’s gross”.

“But Americans are seeing through it, believe me, Americans see through it. And quite frankly, the one thing you don't want to do to Americans is take away their free speech,” he went on.

“It's our first amendment right for a reason, and I'm telling you people aren't happy about it,” he added. “I think it’s actually probably become the number one issue in politics.”

Those comments, though without basis, came as Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter's Jack Dorsey and Google's Sundar Pichai answered questions on content moderation policies in the US Senate.

Republicans went on the attack, alleging that Twitter and Facebook censored a disputed New York Post story about Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, last week.

Democrats meanwhile, called Republican questioning an “embarrassment”, with senator Richard Blumenthal saying tech companies were “labelling misinformation from our president as what it is”.

The president has maintained calls for reform of a law known as Section 230, which Republicans claim has allowed censorship of conservative opinions online.