The rise and fall of a social media handle that went up in smoke, less than 12 years old.
@realDonaldTrump, the Twitter feed which launched a real estate businessman into America’s most powerful political office, went silent on 8 January 2021. The end came 48 hours after a pro-Trump mob invaded the US Capitol in a violent bid to stop the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s election victory, usually a quiet, serious affair. Trump’s Twitter handle is now an empty space, with “account suspended” written in bold letters. For a few hours, a freeze screen showed 51 followed accounts and 88.7 million followers. Now, even that is gone. “I wanted to own a newspaper. This is great, it’s like a newspaper without the losses,” Trump’s acolytes recall him saying. For a president who loved nothing better than attacking “failing” newspapers, the online squeeze is peak irony. Here’s a brief rundown of the rise and fall of a social media handle that went up in smoke, less than 12 years old.
4 May 2009 — Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was born, with a plug for the future US president’s appearance on David Letterman’s show.
8 January 2021 — At 10.21 a.m. EST, Donald Trump’s last tweet before the ban came much later the same evening: “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
180,848: Number of Twitter followers Donald Trump lost since 17 November 2020 until he got kicked off the platform.
2 October 2020 — Donald Trump’s most popular tweet ever was posted on this day, just past midnight. In it, Trump announced that he and first lady Melania Trump had tested positive for Covid19. The post got 1.8 million likes and nearly 400,000 retweets, according to Factba.se, which tracks the president’s social media handles.
471: The number of tweets flagged by Twitter for misinformation, according to Factba.se.
57,304: Total number of tweets posted by Trump.
7: Number of minutes that Peter Costanzo got to pitch the opportunity that Twitter presented, to Trump. This was back in 2009.
1,166: Number of tweets that Trump deleted.
6: Number of words in one of Trump’s most memorable Twitter mix ups. At 4:30 a.m. on 31 May 2017, he bunged this in: “Despite the constant negative press covfefe.” We never forgot the gibberish.
2: The number of tweets mentioned by Twitter in the context of suspending Trump’s account. Here they are:
“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on 20 January.”
Illustration: Justin Sullivan — Getty8 January 2021 — Donald Trump’s Twitter feed died. At 6:21 p.m. EST, Twitter posted a statement titled “Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump.”
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Nikhila Natarajan is Senior Programme Manager for Media and Digital Content with ORF America. Her work focuses on the future of jobs current research in ...
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