Legacy of lies, misinformation, distrust

Following the U.S. Capitol riot, Twitter permanently banned President Donald Trump’s account “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”

Blocked from using his preferred tool for public communication, Trump left behind 88 million followers, some 16,000 now-deleted tweets while in office, and a legacy of spreading disinformation and distrust on the platform.

A CNBC analysis of Trump’s tweets during his presidency found that his most popular and frequent posts largely spread disinformation and distrust. Many of his most-liked tweets contained falsehoods, while the topic he posted about most frequently, “fake news,” was a weapon for undermining information.

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

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

Those 36 posts containing election falsehoods received a collective 22.6 million likes and 3.9 million retweets, according to the analysis, which used a historical log of Trump’s posts from the Trump Twitter Archive and excluded any retweets from accounts other than @realDonaldTrump.

“Since the November election, Trump has turned to Twitter as the core platform for spreading disinformation about the election,” said Woolley. 

The House of Representatives is expected to impeach Trump on Wednesday afternoon for a second time. The Democratic-led House introduced an article of impeachment Monday that cited Trump’s repeated false claims of election fraud as evidence that he ignited insurrection at the Capitol.

While the posting of falsehoods is one form of misinformation, Woolley said, Trump also practiced a less direct mechanism: Attacks intended to delegitimize information. This is most visible in the use of Trump’s favorite phrase, “fake news,” which appeared roughly 900 times across his tweet history.

“Trump uses 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,” said Woolley. “Often what this does is create a bandwagon effect for supporting false or misleading things, or more generally attacking institutions,” which may include health care, science, education, and the government, in addition to the media.

The increase in social media disinformation from Trump and others has visible effects on U.S. democracy, said Kelly Born, executive director of the Cyber Policy Center at Stanford University. She…