Trump accuses Twitter of delisting his followers

US President Donald Trump on Friday accused Twitter of delisting his followers and making it tougher for new people to join, as he criticised the microblogging site's efforts to remove fake and abusive accounts.

Trump has 55.3 million followers on Twitter. The site is the most preferred medium of the president to communicate with his followers.

In a tweet, Trump accused Twitter of being biased towards him.

"Twitter has removed many people from my account and, more importantly, they have seemingly done something that makes it much harder to join - they have stifled growth to a point where it is obvious to all," said the president.

"A few weeks ago it was a Rocket Ship, now it is a Blimp! Total Bias?" Trump wrote.

Twitter said it has been removing fake accounts from its system and in the last two months it has lost some nine million accounts.

"Our focus is on the health of the service, and that includes our work to remove fake accounts and those engaging in malicious behaviour," Twitter said in a statement.

"Many prominent accounts have seen follower counts drop, but the result is higher confidence that the followers they have are real, engaged people," it said.