Legacy of lies, disinformation, distrust

In the wake of the U.S. Capitol Riot, Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump’s account “because of the risk of further incitement to violence.”

Barred from using his favorite tool for public communication, Trump left behind 88 million subscribers, some 16,000 tweets now deleted while in the office, and a legacy of spreading misinformation and mistrust about the platform.

A CNBC analysis of Trump’s tweets during his presidency found that his most popular and frequent posts widely spread misinformation and mistrust. Many of his most beloved tweets contained lies, while the topic he spoke about most frequently, “fake news”, was a weapon to undermine information.

“Trump’s primary use of Twitter has been to spread propaganda and manipulate public opinion,” said Sam Woolley, director of propaganda research at the University of Texas at the Center for Media Engagement. Austin. “He used Twitter to delegitimize information or to delegitimize the positions of his opponents.”

Of Trump’s 10 most popular tweets, four contained false allegations related to the 2020 election results. Of his 100 most popular posts, 36 contained election-related lies.

These 36 posts containing election lies received a total of 22.6 million likes and 3.9 million retweets, according to the analysis, which used a historical log of Trump’s posts from Trump’s Twitter archives and excluded all retweets from accounts other than @realDonaldTrump.

“Since the November election, Trump has taken to Twitter as the primary platform for spreading election disinformation,” Woolley said.

The House of Representatives is expected to impeach Trump on Wednesday afternoon for the second time. The Democratic-led House on Monday published an impeachment article that cited Trump’s repeated false allegations of voter fraud as evidence that he had sparked an insurgency on Capitol Hill.

While publishing lies is a form of disinformation, Woolley said, Trump also practiced a less direct mechanism: attacks aimed at delegitimizing information. This is most noticeable in the use of Trump’s favorite phrase, “fake news,” which has appeared approximately 900 times in his tweet history.

“Trump is using social media and terms like ‘fake news’ and ‘witch hunt’ and his power there to create the illusion of popularity for ideas that actually have no basis in reality,” he said. Woolley said. “Often this creates a ripple effect to support false or deceptive things, or more generally attack institutions,” which can include health care, science, education and government, in addition to the media. .

The increase in social media disinformation from Trump and others is having visible effects on American democracy, said Kelly Born, executive director of the Cyber ​​Policy Center at Stanford University. She described general impacts, such as decreased confidence in institutions, and more specific and tangible results, such as the crowd of Trump supporters who interrupted a joint session of Congress confirming Joe Biden’s electoral victory.

“There is no doubt that the [social media] Platforms were used at every stage “of the riot,” Born said, “from the heightened tensions between these groups to the real heightened animosity to the physical organization people are talking about to bring. zip lines and rope and where to go and when “.

Woolley agreed that the events of the past week show the power of Trump’s internet presence outside of social media, explaining how the online and offline worlds are connected.

Trump’s Twitter cycle followed a now familiar pattern throughout his presidency: Trump tweeted to millions of followers, who then spread the messages in his posts, which were then covered in the media and pushed further. in the public speech, giving Trump another opportunity to comment on his initial post.

“There were other Republicans and supporters who ignored what he was doing, saying he had his thing on Twitter, downplaying it or ignoring it,” Woolley said. “With what we have seen in Washington over the past few days, we can no longer deny the fact that what Trump does and says online has serious consequences offline.”

Trump has spoken publicly for the first time since Tuesday’s riot, but has not personally taken responsibility for the violence. In his comments, he used language similar to that seen in many of his tweets, calling the impeachment speech “truly a continuation of the greatest witch-hunt in politics.”

In addition to how Trump used the tool, Born said part of his Twitter legacy is that his actions ultimately forced social media and tech platforms to take action against the type of content and behavior he promoted. Over the past week, Google and Facebook suspended or banned Trump from their platforms, Amazon withdrew cloud computing support for the social media app Speak due to violent content on the platform. form, and Twitter has suspended more than 70,000 accounts associated with the far-right QAnon conspiracy theory.

Due to Twitter’s permanent suspension of Trump’s account, most of his tweets that had been incorporated into media reports over the years have disappeared, leaving a hole in the 45th President’s historic record. Private companies are not subject to rules requiring government agencies to keep records and communications for legal and historical research purposes.

“These Tweets will no longer be accessible to the public and this is not an institutional government account,” a Twitter spokesperson told CNBC on Wednesday. “We defer to the White House and the National Archives and Archives Administration on retention requirements. We will work with the government to help comply with their archival laws.”

The spokesperson also noted that Politwoops keeps all deleted tweets.

– CNBC’s Marty Steinberg and Steve Kovach contributed to this story.