The Washington Post website reported on November 7 that Trump’s power on Twitter and Facebook will continue after his presidency. The full text is excerpted as follows:
President Trump will leave the White House, whether in January next year or four years later. He will use a large number of social media supporters to influence American politics during his successor’s administration or even longer.
When his first campaign began in 2015, Trump had only 3 million Twitter followers and 10 million Facebook followers. But if Democrat Joe Biden can withstand certain legal challenges, Trump will have a huge network amplifier when he leaves office – at least 88 million Twitter followers, 31 million Facebook fans and 23 million Instagram fans, which will give him the ability to communicate to a large number of supporters from The unique ability of your own ideas.
As a citizen who wants to influence public opinion, mock opponents or help revive their business interests, Trump can easily keep up with this pace, social media researchers said.
Through two national campaigns and nearly four years of presidency, this ability has been honed and strengthened, giving him the opportunity to do things that the President of the United States have rarely tried in the past – like a new president trying to dominate the national stage, keeping the national eye on himself.
“When Biden is going to destroy his political legacy, Donald Trump cannot stand idly by,” said Timothy Naftali, a New York University historian. He said: “He will probably play a destructive role in his previous presidency in American political life. This will break the routine again.”
Trump may also continue to have the power to spread disinformation by continuing to weaken the legitimacy of the election and sowing the seeds of questioning the election results among millions of people, the researchers said. He repeatedly attacked mail-in ballots and other factors in the national vote, and he made some unfounded remarks with unprecedented strength at a time when Biden’s campaign momentum has significantly recovered in recent days.
Since officially entering politics, Trump has exceeded 32,000 tweets and is still increasing. These tweets continue to influence the press, although his tweets are increasingly labeled with warnings for violating Twitter’s policies against disinformation.
As a former president, Trump may be more likely to be ignored, at least by those who do not like his political position or his rhetoric and distortion of facts. But judging from the voting results of this election, Trump’s supporters camp has about 70 million Americans – more than the British population, which ranks 21st in the world.
Trump’s ability to gain attention is not limited to the number of fans he has on various platforms. Even those who slander him agree that Trump has a superb skill in using Twitter to talk to the people. His tweets are often tough and even inflammatory, but difficult to ignore.
Researchers found that Trump also benefited from the unparalleled enthusiasm of his fans, many of whom automatically forwarded his tweets through the use of software. Claire Wardle, the U.S. head of First Draft, a nonprofit that works to address misinformation and misinformation, said some people feed his tweets as a primary source of news.
Whenever he leaves the White House, Trump will lose the extra leeway that Twitter gives world leaders, and Facebook may no longer give policy accommodation to downplay criticism from the president and his political allies. But even if that compliance may disappear, Trump will retain the ability to spread his ideas, even if he may have to be more cautious about how to do so.
He effectively used his tenure and greatly expanded his fan base. Darren Linville, a social media researcher at Clemson University, said that the median number of retweets Trump in the month before the announcement of his candidacy in June 2015 was 66, which had reached 19,600 last month, a nearly 300 times higher than the former.
Trump has also created an echo room for supporters, including influential conservative supporters and countless ordinary supporters, throughout the social media field. They responded to his remarks and believed that the hostility of mainstream news sources and technology companies would prevent his voice from being heard. A network carefully developed by conspiracy theory supporters such as the far-right groups such as the violent Pride Boys and Anonymous Q, worship Trump and is committed to spreading his remarks online and offline.
Jokai Benkler, co-director of Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and a news media and disinformation expert, said whether Trump’s amplifier will be as powerful as he was in office after leaving office.
A key test is whether he can form the same as he was with Fox News Channel during his term. A close alliance. Like Fox News, Fox commentators have repeatedly repeated White House views, and they endorsed and disseminated Trump’s message, Benkler said.
