Donald Trump and Social Media Twitter
Bekasi, 24 December 2022 -- According to M.L. Kent social media is any form of interactive communication media that allows for two-way interaction and feedback. The power of social media is now able to influence society only based on its social aspects, namely interaction and participation.
Social media is used by some people to share their thoughts with the general public. This use is not only carried out by the general public but politicians also take advantage of media issues to spread or share their thoughts with the public. Social media has four benefits for the political activities of a party or candidate, as information, service, access to political power and space. In other words, it can be said that social media is used as a means of political communication which is expected to build positive personal branding in the eyes of the public. Political Communication can be interpreted as a way of conveying messages with political characteristics that aim to influence the public.
The development of information technology that makes it easy to reach a wide range of people without taking a long time, has made social media the main center as a tool for political communication, social media that is often used by politicians or political groups, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.
One of the politicians who uses social media as a political communication tool is Donald Trump.
Donald Trump is an American politician and also the 45th former president of the United States who comes from the Republican party. He was elected as the 45th president of the United States after successfully defeating his opponent, Hillary Clinton from the Democratic party.
Donald Trump actively uses his social media especially Twitter as his political communication tool. Donald Trump's Twitter is his social media account that has the most followers compared to his other social media accounts, such as Instagram and Youtube. This may be the reason why Donald Trump is more active on Twitter.
Twitter was founded by Jack Dorsey in 2006. With many interesting features such as replies, retweets and likes.
Twitter is an internet based microblogging service, where users can send short, 140 character messages to each other. Its use is based on the rapid exchange of thoughts and information among friends, acquaintances and all users of the Twitter platform. Twitter's most frequent messages are called "tweets". These Tweets form a stream of messages that are followed in chronological order from a computer screen or another screen, such as that from a mobile phone. A kind of keyword called a “hashtag” can be added to a tweet to link the current message to several other messages, making it easier to follow messages. In conversations about society, Twitter can be an interesting communication, because the form of the message is very compact. In short messages, there is no opportunity to justify a point of view or quote sources, and because of this, political messages and conversations can be hotter and more important here than on other social media platforms (Conover, 2011).
Through his Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, Trump often raises specific issues related to US glory, anti-PRC sentiment, and anti-immigrant sentiment. These three issues are often voiced by Trump on his Twitter account, so that Trump is considered to want to instill thoughts on these issues to the US public. However, these three issues turned out to be included in the campaign promise that Trump gave when he ran for US President, by continuing to give his thoughts on these issues to the public so that they are considered important issues, what is expected is that support for his campaign remains stable or increases so that later Trump can continue his second term as President of the US even though in the end Trump failed to get his second term after losing to Joe Biden in the 46th US Presidential election.
It was the beginning of the campaign until the defeat of Donald Trump that caused some of the riots that occurred in the United States. Trump's supporters demonstrated in front of the Capitol when the vote count was carried out, Trump's supporters asked for the vote counting process to be stopped, because Donald Trump's supporters considered that there was fraud in the election. Seeing the demonstrations and riots being carried out by his supporters, Donald Trump actually made "tweets" which were considered to contain incitement to continue the protest.
However, the vote count continued and Joe Biden won the most votes, with the result that Joe Biden officially became the 46th president of the United States beating Donald Trump. After his defeat, Donald Trump instead continued to make tweets which were considered to contain sedition, causing continuous demonstrations at the Capitol by supporters of Donald Trump who did not accept the election results. So that on January 6, 2021 Twitter temporarily suspended Donald Trump's Twitter account, following a demonstration on Capitol made by supporters of Donald Trump. But, on January 8, 2022 Trump again make a tweets "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!!!"
Through these tweets, Twitter also permanently suspended or blocked Donald Trump's Twitter account on January 9, 2021 to review the tensions that are currently happening in the United States. The permanent suspension of Donald Trump's account has made the 45th President of the United States no longer able to access or use his Twitter account.
However, on October 27, 2022 CEO of SpaceX and also Tesla inc., Elon Musk officially bought Twitter. Elon Musk has been planning to buy Twitter for a long time, doing this to manage content modernization and prioritize freedom of speech. After successfully buying Twitter, Elon Musk fired 4 top Twitter officials, namely, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Ned Segal, Chief Legal and Policy Officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett. After the dismissal of the 4 Twitter officials, Elon Musk officially served as CEO of Twitter.
Elon Musk has the intent and purpose of buying Twitter, Elon Musk's main goal of buying Twitter is to modernize and prioritize freedom of speech. It is for this reason that on November 20, 2021, Elon Musk reopened access to Donald Trump's Twitter account @realDonaldTrump, this was also done by Elon Musk based on a poll he made on his Twitter account where he opened a poll to reopen or not the account of the 45th President of the United States, and the majority of Twitter users voted to agree to Elon Musk, who is currently CEO of Twitter, to reopen access to Donald Trump's account.
Apart from the voting results and the main purpose of buying his Twitter, Elon Musk has previously stated that permanently blocking or suspending Donald Trump's account is stupid, because everyone should have the right to freedom of speech or express their opinion. And finally on November 20, 2022, Elon Musk officially reopened Donald Trump's account.
But, the decision to reopen access to Donald Trump's account by Elon Musk is considered to be a controversial decision, especially since the reopening of Donald Trump's Twitter account was made a few days after Donald Trump announced that he would run for re-election as President of the United States in the 2024 election.
On the other hand, in responding to his Twitter account which has been reopened, Donald Trump has stated that he is no longer interested in using social media Twitter, because he feels he has no more reason to use Twitter considering that he has also created a social media application "Truth Social" which was founded and owned by Donald Trump's own company Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG).
Trump also considered the "Truth Social" application to be better than Twitter, especially in user engagement. Trump has used the "Truth Social" app as a replacement for Twitter and is using it as his new political communication tool.
Not long ago, Trump even reportedly expressed his anger through his "Social Truth" account to the January 6 Committee because in its final report the riots that occurred in the Capitol, The Jan. 6 committee plans to recommend former President Donald Trump be charged with multiple crimes related to the attack on the U.S. Capitol and the events leading up to it.
Through his personal "Social Truth" account Trump posted Sunday on his Truth Social platform, "Republicans and Patriots all over the land must stand strong and united against the Thugs and Scoundrels of the Unselect Committee. It will be a dark period in American history, but with darkness comes light!!!"
