US: White House snubs Facebook at social media summit

Facebook said that it has not been invited to the White House’s social media summit being held later this week.

White House spokesman Judd Deere announced last month the meeting would “bring together digital leaders for a robust conversation on the opportunities and challenges of today’s online environment,” and recently said that President Donald Trump will speak at the event.

While the White House hasn’t revealed who will be attending the July 11 event, a spokesman for Facebook said in an email that it had not been invited, according to Reuters.

Several conservatives on social media have said they will be attending the summit, including Bill Mitchell, an online show host and Trump supporter, as well as two social media users who posted photos of the invitation to the summit.

It might not be surprising that Facebook hasn’t been asked to attend. Trump has regularly attacked Facebook and Twitter, accusing the social media sites of being “biased” in favor of Democrats. He also claimed in an interview last month that Twitter has made it “very hard for people to join me at Twitter… and they make it very much harder for me to get out the message.”

He took to Twitter in March, writing, “Facebook, Google and Twitter, not to mention the Corrupt Media, are sooo on the side of the Radical Left Democrats. But fear not, we will win anyway, just like we did before!”

Twitter has declined to reveal if it was invited to the summit or would participate, while Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it will be attending. In April, Trump met with Twitter Chief Executive Jack Dorsey and reportedly spent a significant amount of time questioning him about why he had lost some Twitter followers, a source told Reuters.