do you still remember Donald Trump’s tweets?
In them, he mercilessly lambasted his opponents, spread baseless allegations of election fraud, fired off confident America First proclamations, argued with foreign heads of state, offered scathing pop culture criticism, and much, much more.
Trump’s Twitter feed provided a real-time peephole into the US president’s stream of consciousness. Social media updates of a few sentences guided the international news flow and politics for years.
Where did Trump, who is running for president again, disappear to? To Twitter users, he seems to have vanished into thin air, and lately he has been seen in the news mostly in courtrooms.
Let’s recap what has happened on Trump’s social media page.
At the beginning of 2021, Trump was kicked out of Twitter, Facebook and Youtube. The camel’s back was broken when Trump’s supporters, instigated by the president who lost the election, attacked the US Congress building.
At the beginning of last year, as a counterattack, Trump launched his own social media platform called Truth Social, where, as the name suggests, he spreads his own truths. According to estimates, the platform has only a couple of million users, and they are Trump’s core supporters. That’s where Trump posts his messages several times a day.
Here is an example of what the ex-president currently publishes on his own platform:
“REALLY BIG FUNDRAISER AND EVEN BETTER SUPPORT FIGURES AFTER DEVIANTS, MUTANTS, MARXISTS AND COMMUNISTS STARTED THE RADICAL LEFT’S ACCUSATION SCAM! THANK YOU!!!”
Donald Trump at Truth Social 15/06/2023
In this article, we will tell you what Trump’s social media usage is like today and what it says about next year’s elections, in which he will run for president again.
– Trump’s rhetoric has become sharper and more introverted, says the researcher Zeve Sanderson Yelle in a video interview.
Sanderson is a New York University (NYU) of the Center for Social Media and Policy Research founder and executive director.
Twitter and Facebook have sometimes been described as echo chambers, where content shared by like-minded users reinforces each other. In Truth Social, you don’t tweet, but you truth and retruth. These could be translated into Finnish as “trutuutuks” and “upuuentutuutuks”. And they are in a class of their own.
– Nothing is more clearly an echo chamber than a platform founded by one politician, whose users and content reflect this one person’s worldview, says Sanderson.
Extreme Trump can return to Twitter
Researcher Sanderson sees two reasons why Trump’s social media behavior has become even more uninhibited than before:
Trump received a pardon from Twitter last November when Elon Musk’s the company he bought returned his account. In February, Trump was also allowed back into Facebook and Instagram owned by the social media giant Meta, and in March into YouTube owned by Google.
At least Trump hasn’t used his old Twitter and Facebook accounts yet. The situation may change when his campaign starts properly and Trump needs a wider audience for his message.
It is estimated that Truth Social has approximately two million active users. The platform says Trump himself has 5.4 million followers there.
For comparison, Trump still has more than 86 million followers on Twitter, even though he hasn’t posted anything there for two and a half years.
– If Trump decides to return to mainstream social media platforms, I assume he will bring his sharp rhetoric with him. The question is what the social media companies will do then, says Sanderson.
He reminds that Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino has been tasked with reviving the social media company’s ad sales after it was hit hard by Elon Musk’s antics.
– An extreme version of Trump is not something that advertisers want their ads next to, Sanderson believes.
At the same time, however, Twitter has reduced moderation with a heavy hand, as have other technology companies of extensive layoffs at the beginning of the year in connection with.
– The ability to monitor compliance with the terms of service has clearly decreased since the 2020 elections, says Sanderson.
The rules of the services themselves may also change. For example, Youtube ceased at the beginning of June to remove videos falsely claiming that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from Trump.
The social media of 2024 is an unknown region
According to Zeve Sanderson, social media has gone through a major transformation since the 2020 presidential election, and over the next year the changes will accelerate even more.
Sanderson highlights four new social phenomena that will affect the 2024 election:
1. The use of Some is fragmented on more and more platforms.
“It is more difficult to get an overall picture of what is happening on numerous different social platforms.”
2. Videos are increasing, and video content is more difficult to monitor than text content.
“We don’t yet know what an election will look like where videos and live streaming are used so widely.”
3. Artificial intelligence is used to produce all kinds of content.
“Artificial intelligence can be used by disinformation spreaders, but also by campaign managers for quick and cheap communication.”
4. Moderation of social media content has experienced a bumpy ride from layoffs.
“If the moderation teams are not grown again before the elections, the ability to control the content circulating on social platforms will weaken.”
In next year’s election, the Democratic president Joe Biden strives for the next season. The setups for the Republican primaries are just taking shape. It is certain that the election will once again sharply divide Americans.
According to Sanderson, it is still difficult to predict Trump’s campaigning, but the increased use of social media gives an indication of it. Also new is that Trump is now being charged with serious, federal crimes — the first ever for a former president.
According to Sanderson, the charges will become a central part of Trump’s campaign. They give him the opportunity to drum up an image of himself as a righteous former president who has been persecuted by his opponents and the “deep state”.
As recent posts on Truth Social show, Trump has already started this.
– Trump has acted like this before, but with the accusations we are going into turbo gear.
You can discuss the topic until Saturday 24.6. until 11 p.m.