Goodbye to preferential treatment: on January 20 Trump will become a regular user of Twitter
The president has taken advantage of his political leader status to spread messages of supposed public interest without filters until his favorite social network decided to suspend his account
It has been four years ruling by tweet. Donald Trump has led the United States without detaching himself from Twitter, from where he has decided affairs of state, proffered insults at his enemies and incited violence and disorder. His personal account, @realDonaldTrump, has become a communication channel that mixes government and personal matters shared without filters, but with some protection. Twitter long sheltered Trump's account on the premise that messages from world leaders are of public interest. However, the torrent of unsubstantiated complaints about alleged electoral fraud and his instigating role in the assault on the Capitol ended up destroying these barriers. The network began by tagging many of his tweets, finally deleted three of them on Wednesday and suspended his account for 12 hours. Twitter will have easier action from January 20, when the transition of power takes place and the president becomes another user. So neither Trump nor Twitter will be the same.
From @POTUS to @realDonaldTrump
Trump began his presidency on January 20, 2017, ending some customs of the previous term in the management of networks. The first was to refuse to use only the official account that Twitter had created for the president of the United States, @POTUS (for the acronym in English of President Of The United States), as his official communication channel and to continue tweeting, to your way, from your personal account.
The @POTUS account was created precisely to avoid what Trump has represented in this mandate: to make invisible the line that separates the personal and the professional, between the citizen and the official position that he holds. The account had been created with the arrival of former President Barack Obama, Trump's predecessor, to power in 2009.
During the Obama administration, Twitter wanted to make official the messages issued by the presidency and centralize them in a single channel. It seemed like a good idea. And it worked. In 2017, when the Democrat left office, a new account was created for Trump and the one that the Obama team had managed was renamed @ POTUS44, in reference to his presidential number. The transition of power in networks had been easy and clean. But he rebelled against the path they had set for him. The Republican came to the presidency with a very popular personal account that was growing by leaps and bounds. When he announced his bid for the presidency in 2015, Trump had 2.98 million followers. The number rose to 13 million when he won the election in November 2016. This Friday, 88 million follow. In his entire presidency, the Republican has increased the number of followers six times.
@POTUS continued to be used as an official channel, but with a much smaller reach and currently has 33 million followers, less than half the number of @realDonaldTrump. As of January 20, Twitter has announced that it will repeat the process and that it will be done automatically: the @POTUS account will be handed over to the team of the next President Joe Biden and the fan count will start with zero. As it did with Obama, the social network will create another account, @ POTUS45 (in reference to the number of the Republican presidency), in which will be all the publications made during Trump's term that will become part of the National Archives Administration and Documents (NARA). The resetting of the accounts will also affect that of the vice president, @VP, who will pass from Mike Pence - who does use this account - to the senator and vice president-elect, Kamala Harris; to that of the new first lady, @FLOTUS; and the White House press secretary @PressSec.
Network protection
Trump contributed to some extent to the Jack Dorsey platform experiencing a resurgence of users and regaining the importance it had lost in the field of social networks to other giants such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But the network had to make some concessions, including including his personal account under the protection status that the network grants to the accounts of "world leaders" considering that their publications have a clear value of public interest. A protection that has put the company to the test - and upside down - on multiple occasions. More than they could imagine and control.
The account @realDonaldTrump thus enjoyed, at least until this Wednesday, advantages. For example, neither his posts nor his own account could be deleted despite violating the rules of coexistence. “Twitter's approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to see what their leaders say in a clear context (…) This policy framework applies to current world leaders already candidates for public office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions, "the social network explained at the time through a statement.
However, this did not mean that Trump - or any world leader - could publish whatever he wanted without facing the consequences. In early 2020, after three years of controversy, Twitter decided to modify its policy. Presidential elections would take place in November and it was feared that the networks could contribute to the chaos. The coronavirus pandemic that landed in the West in March also put pressure on social platforms to toughen their posting policies.
With the new rules, the tweets of any user - even protected ones - could be tagged for disinformation or hate speech. The network began to place alerts in the publications, when it considered that these could contain hoaxes, call for violence and propagate conspiracy theories. It happened with all kinds of users. From Miguel Bosé to Trump. In extreme cases, the network would also sanction those accounts that promote terrorism, make direct threats of violence against individuals, upload private information about other people, or engage in child abuse activities. And that threat came true when hundreds of protesters stormed the Capitol to force Congress not to declare Trump's defeat.
After the assault
Amid the chaos, as thousands of his followers stormed the Capitol, Twitter acted against Trump. “We have been significantly restricting interaction with tweets tagged under our Civic Integrity Policy due to the risk of violence. This means that these tagged tweets cannot be answered, retweeted or liked, ”the company said in a statement. Hours later, the network decided to permanently delete three Trump tweets from its platform and suspend his personal account for 12 hours. The company also threatened to "permanently" suspend Trump from the platform if he violated the rules again.
The three deleted tweets and another five labeled "containing information that could be false" were, according to US media, one of the causes that unleashed chaos in the building that houses the House of Congress and the Senate. For the first time since its alert system to fight misinformation and fake news on the platform went into effect, Twitter tagged a video of Trump with this message: “This claim of electoral fraud is questionable, and this tweet cannot be answered, retweeted or receive a like due to the risk that it encourages violence ”. In the video, the president asked the protesters to "return home" but added that "the election has been stolen" from the Republicans and that "that is something that everyone knows, even those on the other side." He then proceeded to remove it from the platform and later temporarily block the account. Facebook went further and this Thursday suspended its profiles on the social network and Instagram at least until the political transition is completed.
Network protection
Trump contributed to some extent to the Jack Dorsey platform experiencing a resurgence of users and regaining the importance it had lost in the field of social networks to other giants such as Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. But the network had to make some concessions, including including his personal account under the protection status that the network grants to the accounts of "world leaders" considering that their publications have a clear value of public interest. A protection that has put the company to the test - and upside down - on multiple occasions. More than they could imagine and control.
The account @realDonaldTrump thus enjoyed, at least until this Wednesday, advantages. For example, neither his posts nor his own account could be deleted despite violating the rules of coexistence. “Twitter's approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to see what their leaders say in a clear context (…) This policy framework applies to current world leaders already candidates for public office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions, "the social network explained at the time through a statement.
However, this did not mean that Trump - or any world leader - could publish whatever he wanted without facing the consequences. In early 2020, after three years of controversy, Twitter decided to modify its policy. Presidential elections would take place in November and it was feared that the networks could contribute to the chaos. The coronavirus pandemic that landed in the West in March also put pressure on social platforms to toughen their posting policies.
With the new rules, the tweets of any user - even protected ones - could be tagged for disinformation or hate speech. The network began to place alerts in the publications, when it considered that these could contain hoaxes, call for violence and propagate conspiracy theories. It happened with all kinds of users. From Miguel Bosé to Trump. In extreme cases, the network would also sanction those accounts that promote terrorism, make direct threats of violence against individuals, upload private information about other people, or engage in child abuse activities. And that threat came true when hundreds of protesters stormed the Capitol to force Congress not to declare Trump's defeat.
After the assault
Amid the chaos, as thousands of his followers stormed the Capitol, Twitter acted against Trump. “We have been significantly restricting interaction with tweets tagged under our Civic Integrity Policy due to the risk of violence. This means that these tagged tweets cannot be answered, retweeted or liked, ”the company said in a statement. Hours later, the network decided to permanently delete three Trump tweets from its platform and suspend his personal account for 12 hours. The company also threatened to "permanently" suspend Trump from the platform if he violated the rules again.
The three deleted tweets and another five labeled "containing information that could be false" were, according to US media, one of the causes that unleashed chaos in the building that houses the House of Congress and the Senate. For the first time since its alert system to fight misinformation and fake news on the platform went into effect, Twitter tagged a video of Trump with this message: “This claim of electoral fraud is questionable, and this tweet cannot be answered, retweeted or receive a like due to the risk that it encourages violence ”. In the video, the president asked the protesters to "return home" but added that "the election has been stolen" from the Republicans and that "that is something that everyone knows, even those on the other side." He then proceeded to remove it from the platform and later temporarily block the account. Facebook went further and this Thursday suspended its profiles on the social network and Instagram at least until the political transition is completed.
The president was more alone than ever. Silenced by who, indirectly, had been his main communication ally during his government.
Trump will take 88 million followers from his controversial presidency. Given his preference for the social network and the way he acts, it is likely that he will continue to be one of the most important characters in the world of Twitter. But, as of January 20, he will become an ordinary citizen. And it will be easier for his account, that of a normal user, to be suspended - temporarily or permanently - than that of a president of the United States.
