‘Trump wouldn’t be President if not for Twitter’

Los Angeles, May 31 (IANS) Actor-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen doesnt think that Donald Trump would be President without Twitter.

The "Who Is America?" creator and star sat down with actor Don Cheadle to discuss his Showtime series, which saw the actor going undercover and interviewing Americans around the country, including notable politicians, for "Actors on Actors", reports variety.co.m.

Baron Cohen called out Twitter and its CEO, Jack Dorsey, for failing to ban extremists who hold violent viewpoints from the platform, pointing to Dorsey's recent visit to the White House.

"Trump without Twitter probably would not have become President," Baron Cohen stated.

"Which is why Jack Dorsey is in the White House having a meeting with Trump. What's fascinating about that is, he's sitting across from the president, who's actually the biggest celebrity endorser of his company. And Jack Dorsey and Twitter cannot implement any restrictions against white supremacists and racists...

"They get rid of the racists, they're going to have less Twitter subscribers. So obviously he can claim, 'Oh, I believe in freedom of speech, and obviously I won't be biased against anyone,' when really, in society, we want to be biased against those who want to kill people like you or like me, just because of the colour of our skin or our ethnicity or because we're different."

Baron Cohen issued a warning about the state of society, calling it "dangerous" and stating that "democracy is being disintegrated", reports variety.com.

That disintegration is why Cohen wanted to create "Who Is America?" he explained, with the goal of pushing those he interviewed to "the edge where just before a punch or a gun is pulled out".

"You want to push it to that because that's where it's really fascinating," he said. "And you want to provoke them... I want to see what people's real thoughts are and real beliefs are and what they would say if they - what you've never seen on television before."