Tweets of Donald Trump’s death have been greatly exaggerated.
You may have woken up to #TrumpIsDead trending on Twitter this morning, and swiped over to your news app of choice to find out more.
Of course, there would have been no such story there. The former US president is alive and well – to coin one of his favourite phrases, this hashtag was a stone-cold case of fake news.
But in a co-ordinated attempt to test Elon Musk‘s stance on disinformation on the platform following his takeover, trending topics in the US and beyond were for hours topped with news of Mr Trump‘s apparent demise.
Why did it happen?
As ever, when something trends on Twitter, especially if it ends up being false or misleading, much of the discussion was driven by people wondering what on Earth was going on.
But it began as an effort to essentially stick it to new owner Musk, who has made content moderation – and his apparent desire to loosen it – a key part of the conversation surrounding his takeover.
“#TrumpIsDead is the best retaliation to Musk saying disinformation is free speech,” said one.
Another who tweeted the hashtag added: “I mean, he might be alive, but since we’re apparently going in a new direction on fact-checking in Chief Twit’s new world, I guess we’ll never know.”
“There has never been a hashtag that has trending bigger,” said one, echoing Mr Trump’s style of self-praise.
At its peak, tens of thousands of tweets drove the hashtag to the top of the trending charts.
Verified accounts got in on the joke, with one from comedian Tim Heidecker racking up close to 10,000 retweets, while others mocked up screenshots of news sites including CNN.
In the US, #TrumpIsDead even overtook the evening’s World Series baseball action.
Read more:
The celebs quitting Twitter after Musk’s takeover
Source : skynews
