Trump, Twitter, and Jack Dorsey
May 6, 2019
The last week or so have been relatively rough for President Trump’s follower count, following the removal of over 5,000 bot accounts. These pro-Trump accounts were found to be retweeting false information on the recently released Mueller report.
The removal of these accounts prompted an incredibly short interview between Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and President Trump in the Oval Office. This meeting lasted about 30 minutes and sparked a lot of discussion over what exactly the two talked about.
Loss of followers, health of the public conversation, and a response to the opioid crisis were the most credible possibilities following the interview. The idea that two of the most influential people on the planet were meeting over a few thousand lost followers had people all over the internet laughing.
“It’s hard to laugh often under Trump. But the fact that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told Trump he was losing followers because they are removing bots is priceless. He’s such a doofus,” lesser known author Brian O’Sullivan tweeted afterwards.
It came out in the hours following that Jack Dorsey also met with freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar earlier in the day to discuss several Trump tweets that caused his followers to go after Omar with threats against her life.
In a classic Twitter tirade that the world has come used to, President Trump claimed that Twitter was unfairly targeting him due to his political affiliation and is sure that he would have over 100 million followers if it weren’t for Twitter’s “political games.”
“‘The best thing ever to happen to Twitter is Donald Trump.’ @MariaBartiromo So true, but they don’t treat me well as a Republican. Very discriminatory, hard for people to sign on. Constantly taking people off list,” he said.
At the end of the day meetings like these won’t matter too much in the future, but it does a great job at showing where the president’s priorities are. There are a million other issues facing the country, some incredibly urgent, but for right now we are going to have to focus our attention on a not-so-important follower number.