Tomorrow, President Donald Trump is meeting with a series of right wing figures at the White House to discuss social media issues. But Facebook and Twitter won’t be there. In fact, the only social media network that has publicly said it’s attending is Minds—billed as the crypto “anti-Facebook” and once home to several neo-Nazi extremist groups.
Pulp, a public relations firm that counts Minds among its client list, sent Motherboard a photo of the invitation the fringe social media site received to the White House for the summit.
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“Minds.com is the only social media network invited to the White House’s social media summit!” wrote the Pulp representative in an email to Motherboard. Facebook and Twitter, social media companies with an astronomically larger number of users than Minds, were excluded from the summit.
A previous Motherboard investigation found that miliant neo-Nazi groups connected to Atomwaffen Division—a violent American hate group connected to several murders—was using Minds as a platform for recruiting and spreading propaganda. Minds eventually banned the accounts when Motherboard showed them to the platform, but the company’s lax content moderation allowed them to proliferate unchecked for months.
The White House declined to comment on the guest list of the summit, but Trump has made the perceived “bias” against conservatives by social media companies one of his core talking points in recent months. Earlier this year, Trump met with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and reportedly discussed such pressing issues as why his follower count declined.
Media Matters is reporting the summit will be attended by an assortment of individuals connected to nationalist movements, QAnon and anti-Semitic conspiracies surrounding George Soros.
Tim Pool—a right-wing media figure who once worked at VICE News—tweeted an identical invitation to the same White House summit that Minds received.
Also in attendance, among others, will be far-right radio host Bill Mitchell known for his meme-making under the name ‘Carpe Donktum’ and his support for the QAnon movement, as well as right wing activist “Ali Akbar” (also known as ‘Ali Alexander’) who recently tweeted that Senator and 2020 Presidential contender Kamala Harris, herself a woman of colour, wasn’t black enough to discuss racial politics in America.
Minds CEO Bill Ottman—who is scheduled to attend the summit according to Pulp—has given a few high profile interviews this year on the Joe Rogan podcast and to controversial Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, who is often cited as having a deep influence on the Trump Administration.
