The Trump administration wants social media platforms to police protesters

The Trump administration has sent letters to social media companies requesting they take action on posts calling for people to take down statues, commit acts of violence, and break curfews, as first reported by The Washington Post. The acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, sent letters to the CEOs of Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Snap, and Google’s parent company Alphabet.

In a copy of one of the letters obtained by The Verge, Wolf claims that DHS agents witnessed “crimes such as burglary, arson, aggravated assault, rioting, looting, and defacing public property” and that perpetrators used social media “as a tool to plan, organize, and effectuate these crimes.”

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