President Trump's Tweets Have a "Troll-Like" Quality

[Troy]

I heard a news story that Trump's tweets were being flagged if they failed a fact check.  So for the first time in my life, I logged into Twitter and looked at 45's twitter feed; I wanted to see what these "flagged" tweets looked like.  I could not find a single one.  But what I did discover is that 45 tweets a lot, I mean a heck of a lot.  I was also surprised to see that half the people that follow AALBC also follow 45.  Why do so many of us follow 45 on Twitter?

 

Below is a screen grab from yesterday's tweets.  This does not include his retweets or all of the tweets he made that day.  The engagement is off the charts.  Who knows how much revenue this is creating for Twitter.  The scandal surrounding the flagged tweets just increases Twitter's traffic.  If even got me to look at 45's feed.

 

Because 45 tweets so often, and what he tweets is so outlandish, the behavior is really is not very different than that of a troll.  The best way to deal with Trolls is not to feed them, but Twitter has done nothing but lavish 45 with food.  People with useful or important information to share get little or no engagement, while 45 random tweets becomes prime-time news.

 

This encourages 45, but just as importantly it discourages those with important things to share from tweeting because they are crowded out by 45's rants.  You don't even hear about Katie Perry or Kim Kardashian -- not that I followed them either, but you could not avoid hearing about their impact on Twitter.

 

Of course this is how Twitter makes money, but it really is a microcosm of what the WWW has become in the 2020s -- a troll farm. It is a shame because the web held so much great potential.  I wonder what Twitter will do once 45 stops tweeting.

 

 

 

 

 

Facebook apparently refuses to flag 45's lying tweets. 

 

Over the decades I have had posts post outrageous things here.  These posts attracted attention