Donald Trump hails Facebook and Twitter for propelling him to the White House
US president-elect Donald Trump has made Facebook and Twitter squirm after lavishing praise on the social media sites for helping to propel him through the doors of the White House.
Singling out the digital titans for their role in his election win Trump told CBS’ 60 Minutes: “The fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I think it helped me win all of these races where they’re spending much more money than I spent.
“I think that social media has more power than the money they spent.”
Trump’s endorsement won’t be welcomed by Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg who has spent the days since the election seeking to dismiss Facebook’s role in the eventual outcome. This comes after he was forced to deny reports that fake news items posted on its trending stories page had given Trump a boost.
Now that he is in the hot seat however Trump says he will take a step back from social media, telling host Lesley Stahl: “I’m going to do very restrained, if I use it at all.”
Nevertheless Trump may find tweeting in particular a hard habit to drop, particularly if, as is likely, he encounters a more hostile media going forward. He said: “Twitter, Facebook, and the like are great form[s] of communication. I’m not saying I love it, but it does get the word out. When you (CBS) give me a bad story, or when you give me an inaccurate story.”
The 45th US president has boasted of his social media following which now numbers some 28m people, amidst claims that he has added hundreds of thousands more followers since his election.