Melania Trump says she was ‘taken aback’ by a meeting with Big Tech executives
Trump says she was disappointed by executives’ actions during her “Be Best” campaign.
Though former President Donald Trump is more well-known for sparring with tech leaders than his wife, former First Lady Melania Trump took a shot at industry executives in her new memoir, “Melania.” She writes that their actions during her efforts to combat cyberbullying were “disappointing.”
Trump took on fewer political causes than most first ladies, but did launch an anti-bullying campaign dubbed “Be Best.”
As part of the effort, she hosted executives from companies including Facebook, Twitter, Google, Snapchat, and Amazon at the White House for a roundtable discussion. Her hope, she says, was to discuss stricter oversight over children’s online activities and address how anonymity enables digital attacks.
“Rather than presenting a list of demands, I approached the discussion as both a concerned mother and as First Lady, eager to explore effective solutions,” Trump writes. At the meeting, she says she urged the executives to consider steps that could limit harmful content but had little success.
“I was taken aback by the resistance I encountered from the tech executives. They seemed to suggest that their ability to address harmful content was limited, due to concerns about free speech,” she writes in the book. “I emphasized that I was not advocating for censorship, but rather for the protection of children.”
Trump says she continued in her efforts to protect children from cyberbullying despite the roadblock. Eventually, she warmed back up to Microsoft’s leaders, noting that she had a successful dialogue with the company’s president and CEO, Brad Smith and Satya Nadella respectively, about putting parental controls on Xbox.
Donald Trump recently furthered his schism with some Big Tech leaders — earlier this summer, he railed against Meta and Google for perceived censorship. He advised his followers on Truth Social to “go after Meta and Google” after a photo of the first assassination attempt against him was mistakenly fact-checked on Facebook.
Though some tech leaders, like Elon Musk, have lined up behind Trump, a large contingent of Silicon Valley is rallying behind Vice President Kamala Harris in the final stretch of the election.
