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More than two years since he last posted on the social media site and more than a month since Meta announced it would lift its ban on the former president, Trump posted a short fundraising video. Trump hadn’t posted since Jan. 6, 2021. He was banned from Facebook and Twitter, among other social media sites that determined he promoted violence. “Sorry to keep you waiting, complicated business,” Trump is heard saying in a 12-second video of his 2016 election night victory with then Vice President Elect Mike Pence on his right and his son Barron on his left. [facebook https://www.facebook.com/Don…

A House lawmaker criticized journalist Matt Taibbi Thursday for omitting Donald Trump’s push to censor model Chrissy Teigen on Twitter in Taibbi’s attack on the government over its alleged left-wing pressure on the social media platform. Taibbi — armed with files released to him by CEO Elon Musk — late last year tried to make a case in his so-called “Twitter Files” expose that the imagined deep state was censoring right-wing content on the site. The most dramatic situation, however, turned out to be Trump’s demand to remove Teigen’s 2019 tweet calling the then-president a “p*ssy a** b*tch.” Ta…

Kentucky GOP Sen. Jason Howell, who sponsored a bill mandating a complaint process for removing “obscene” materials from his state’s public schools, is denying that he personally ‘liked’ obscene images on Twitter, claiming his account was hacked, Kentucky Lantern reported. Sexually explicit photos remained in Howell’s Twitter “likes” history for almost two years, even after he was questioned about them by a reporter in 2021. Senate Majority spokesperson Angela Billings defended Howell, saying his Twitter history has nothing to do with the bill. “He didn’t have the savvy to, I don’t believe, co…

Sen. Mike Lee’s (R-UT) sock-puppet Twitter account, “BasedMikeLee,” was suspended on Wednesday by Twitter after he used the account to lash out against Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida for not releasing U.S. Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis from prison. Lee immediately took to Twitter to complain about it: “My personal Twitter account – @BasedMikeLee – has been suspended. Twitter did not alert me ahead of time, nor have they yet offered an explanation for the suspension.” According to Politico’s Playbook, Lee set a deadline of Feb. 28 for Alkonis to be released. IN OTHER NEWS: GOP Oversight chair i…

In a 10-page statement released on Tuesday through his campaign website, former President Donald Trump attacked the FBI and Twitter, for supposedly burying evidence that exonerates him in the January 6 investigation — and rehashed a number of false claims he and his allies have made regarding his involvement in the events of that day. “I have been newly reinstated on Twitter and various other social media platforms, and my Tweets, which were taken down by Big Tech censorship, and thus seen by very few, have just been made public,” wrote Trump. “My clear and unequivocal statements on January 6,…

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has allowed former President Donald Trump to return to both platforms, the company announced on Wednesday. In a statement put out by Meta about Trump’s return, the company says they will end Trump’s suspension on both platforms “in the coming weeks.” Trump’s disappearance from Facebook and Instagram has dramatically reduced the amount of false and misleading information consumed by the Meta audience. In the statement, Meta said their Oversight Board implemented a two-year ban for Trump after the Jan. 6 attacks in 2021. To limit the disinforma…

Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) has blasted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as a liar, but his newly announced Senate campaign is already spending ad money on the platform. The Arizona Democrat announced Monday that he was running for the U.S. Senate seat currently held by newly independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, and Facebook’s political ad disclosure tool shows Gallego’s campaign had spent at least $7,000 on ads right out of the gate. Gallego and Zuckerberg were students together at Harvard when Facebook was created, and the lawmaker has challenged the tech mogul’s claim that Iraq War protests inspi…

Donald Trump’s campaign is preparing for his return to social media sites that had banned him following the Jan. 6 insurrection. The former president’s campaign is formally petitioning Facebook to unblock his account, saying the ban had “dramatically distorted and inhibited the public discourse,” according to a letter reviewed by NBC News. A similar ban by Twitter was revoked by the platform’s new owner Elon Musk on Nov. 19, but Trump is yet to send a comeback message. “Trump is probably coming back to Twitter, it’s just a question of how and when,” said one Republican who had private conversa…

On Monday, Donald Trump sent off a flurry of posts on his Truth Social account, lashing out at border security, Ukraine and Facebook –all within a 30-minute period. The former president — whose only online presence is on his struggling Truth Social since he has yet to take Elon Musk up on his offer to allow him back on Twitter — kicked off the morning with a no-context post where he wrote: “‘TRUMP WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING’ One of most often used current phrases or statements. Wow, such a magnificent compliment. Thank you!” — and then he was off and running. Next came complaints about th…

While a debate brews over the White House, Homeland Security, Pentagon, Secret Service and FBI failures on and around Jan. 6, another piece of the equation is being cited by Rolling Stone attacking social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, which allowed insurrectionists to propagate throughout their platforms. After the Jan. 6 attack, “Twitter employees raged at their own company and its leadership, blaming them for the social media giant’s inept handling of Donald Trump and other top MAGA figures’ incitement to violence,” the report explained. “Do you want to have more blood on your hands…

According to a report from Business Insider, a substantial number of Donald Trump’s followers on his Truth Social platform had a meltdown over the possibility he might return to Twitter at the invitation of new owner Elon Musk. Since assuming control of Twitter, the controversial billionaire has opened the door to previously-banned former users with Trump being the centerpiece of those he wants back — likely because Trump’s rejoining will increase traffic as Twitter continues to falter and advertisers are staying away. As Business insider reports, the former president is already hindered from…

After yet another tumultuous day of controversial decision making, Twitter CEO Elon Musk has asked his followers to determine whether he should continue to run the company. In a post published at 6:20 p.m. ET on Sunday evening, Musk set up a poll and asked, “Should I step down as head of Twitter?” and then added that he “will abide by the results of this poll.” As of this writing, the results of the poll are very close, with 51.5 percent voting in favor of Musk going and 48.5 percent voting against. There are still 11 hours until the poll closes. The trouble for Musk began earlier in the day w…

Twitter on Sunday announced a new policy about promotion of rival social media platforms — and one French government official is warning the company that it could have major legal consequences. In a Sunday afternoon post, the Twitter Support account stated that “we will no longer allow free promotion of certain social media platforms on Twitter.” Twitter Support then specified that “we will remove accounts created solely for the purpose of promoting other social platforms and content that contains links or usernames for the following platforms: Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Truth Social, Tri…

Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s erratic content management practices hit new heights this week when he swiftly banned multiple journalists whom he accused of posting “assassination coordinates” for people to do him harm. At issue was reporters who were discussing the also-banned Twitter account that tracked Musk’s jet. However, not all of the reporters banned by Musk directly linked to the banned account, and Musk quickly left a chat session after being confronted by reporters about his actions. Given all this, reports Semafor, Democratic lawmakers have been scouting around for alternatives to Twitter…

Multiple journalists had their Twitter accounts suspended on Thursday shortly after they wrote tweets that referenced Twitter CEO Elon Musk. As of this writing, Twitter has suspended the accounts of CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan, New York Times reporter Ryan Mac, Washington Post reporter Drew Harwell, Mashable reporter Matt Binder, and independent progressive commentator Aaron Rupar. Twitter has given no explanation for the suspensions, although all of the journalists mentioned were either writing stories on or commenting on Musk’s content moderation policies at the social networking website. O’Sulli…

A Fox News segment on Sunday suggested that the United States is less free because Twitter enacted safety policies before and after the 2020 presidential election. Over the weekend, author Michael Shellenberger released the fourth installment of the so-called Twitter files. The documents showed that Twitter Head of Trust & Safety Yoel Roth pressed then-CEO Jack Dorsey to put stricter rules on unsafe speech connected to conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. “It’s always under the guise of safety,” Fox News host Lisa Marie Boothe said. “The solution is just giving up your freedom.” Florid…

Fox News host Arthel Neville disagreed with an “expert” who said that Elon Musk plans to use Twitter as the software for chips implanted in people’s brains. Neville hosted a segment on Sunday with Datagrade CEO Joe Toscano to discuss information about the 2020 election that Musk revealed from Twitter’s files. “Perhaps, Elon is really trying to deflect attention from the fact that he just proposed within the next six months, he’s hoping to put chips in people’s brains,” Toscano remarked. “So you think there’s maybe much ado about nothing,” Neville replied, “and a distraction by Musk. Is that wh…

According to a report from the Daily Beast’s Will Sommer, the former headmaster of a Baton Rouge private school dedicated to providing a “classical Christian education” is scrambling to explain the racist posts he made under a pseudonym that led to his firing just after Thanksgiving. At issue for self-proclaimed Christian nationalist Thomas Achord is a Twitter account he created under the name Tulius Aadland that was laden with racist and sexist comments. With Sommer writing that Achord was seen as a “rising star” in the Christian nationalist movement, he added that star has plummeted to Earth…

According to a new report from The New York Times, hate speech has increased on Twitter after Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform. “…slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day. Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day. And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site,” The Ti…

Hitler-praising rapper Kanye West was finally suspended from Twitter this week after posting an image of a Nazi swastika inside of a Jewish Star of David. The suspension came after Twitter CEO Elon Musk once again reached out to West to register his concerns about West’s flagrantly anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi posts, after which West rebuffed him. Musk then made the decision to at least temporarily suspend West’s account. The swastika post was just one of many offensive actions that West took on Thursday. READ MORE: Trump rages at report that Mar-a-Lago security being boosted: ‘Not going to have gue…

Twitter is hemorrhaging advertisers, and new CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to retain them have backfired spectacularly. The tech entrepreneur’s first month as Twitter owner has chased off half of the company’s top 100 advertisers, who have paused spending over concerns about content moderation and the firing of most of its ad sales team, and Musk has been unable to strong-arm them into returning, reported the Financial Times. “He seems to put off even those advertisers who wanted him to succeed,” said one top advertising agency executive. Twitter’s ad business team has been cut so deeply that many a…

As fears grow over misinformation spreading on the social media platform owned by the world’s richest man, the official account of the Republican National Committee was called out for posting a fake George Washington quote on Saturday. The @GOP Twitter account posted a meme featuring a picture of the first president, a quotation mark, and a quote they attributed to Washington reading, “it will be found an unjust and unwise jealousy to deprive a man of his natural liberty upon the supposition he may abuse it.” The GOP account, controlled by RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel added, “let freedom be…

Venture capitalist Bradley Tusk argued on Wednesday that Elon Musk’s chaotic tenure as CEO of Twitter could soon spill over to his other businesses. In particular, he said that a Musk failure at Twitter could have dire consequences for electric car manufacturer Tesla. “Tesla’s market cap a few days ago was $564 billion, General Motors is $56 billion,” he said. “General Motors sold… 22.2 million cars last year, Tesla sold around 900,000. So a lot of Tesla’s value is based on hype, it’s based on, sort of, promise and potential. But it’s based on this belief that Elon Musk can’t fail.” Tusk wen…

By Brad Reed Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Friday angrily lashed out after seeing his new company suffer a massive drop in advertising revenue — and then had to see his own platform offer a fact check to his claims. In a tweet posted Friday morning, Musk complained that “Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.” Musk added that this situation was “extremely messed up” and he accused the activists of “trying to destroy free speech in Ameri…

By Travis Gettys Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano has control over a Facebook account that pumps out hateful content against immigrants, transgender people and Jewish people. The Republican state senator has administrative privileges over the “Mastriano Memes” page linked to his official campaign account that circulates dozens of posts a day, including antisemitic and other extremist content implying President Joe Biden is a pedophile and comparing abortion to satanic sacrifice, reported The Daily Beast. Other recent posts mocked the assassination attempt on House speaker Na…

By Sky Palma A Chicago police supervisor has retired while being investigated for making racist and incendiary posts on his Facebook profile, which he falsely claimed was hacked, Fox 32 reports. Police Lt. John Cannon stepped down after an investigation showed he demonstrated a “flagrant disregard” for department policies. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability recommended that he be fired. “Lt. Cannon’s posts disparage the same protected classes he took an oath to protect and serve, including Muslims, African Americans, Hispanics, Asian Americans, the LGBTQ community, and women,” stated…

By Travis Gettys A Utah Republican candidate was exposed for operating a Twitter account attacking women and LGBTQ people and spreading coronavirus conspiracy theories. Trevor Lee, who defeated longtime Rep. Steve Handy in the Utah House District 16 primary, admitted to operating the since-deleted @ballinlee account using the screen name “Truth seeker,” which made false and offensive claims about LGBTQ people, after the Salt Lake City Tribune discovered his involvement and asked him for comment. “The world we live in now,” Lee said about disabling the account. “I can say something that I may n…

By Bob Brigham The whistleblower who testified about Donald Trump’s Twitter account before the House Select Committee Investigating the Jan. 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol revealed her identity on Thursday. In July testimony, the former Twitter employee’s voice was disguised to protect her, but she is now publicly coming forward. “In July I shared shocking testimony from an anonymous Twitter employee about warning signs she saw of what was coming on Jan. 6,” select committee member Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) tweeted. “Today I’m honored to share her identity with you. Thank you, Anika Navaroli, for…

By Tom Boggioni According to a report from Reuters, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) used his opening remarks at a Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday to claim that there is evidence that a Chinese agent has infiltrated Twitter, posing a major security risk for the whole country. Grassley’s comments came before whistleblower Peiter “Mudge” Zatko provided testimony about complex security issues at the massive social media company. According to the Reuters report, the Iowa Republican stated “at least one Chinese agent is working at the company,” before stating, “His disclosures also note that the FB…

By Matthew Chapman On Wednesday, The Daily Beast reported that tech billionaire Elon Musk privately tried to use the possibility of World War III as an excuse to delay his controversial and ill-fated deal to buy Twitter, which is now being intensely litigated as he attempts to back out of the enterprise. Publicly, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has claimed that the reason he called off the deal was that Twitter had lied to him about the number of fake accounts that were active on the site. “The eyebrow-raising texts were revealed by Twitter on Tuesday in a hearing at Delaware Chancery court, with th…

By Sarah K. Burris Motherboard revealed that Facebook turned over data to police so that they could prosecute a teenager for seeking an abortion. In states around the country, abortion has been banned, but in a few states, legislatures passed bills that allowed vigilantes to track down people who had abortions. What is problematic in this case, is that the incident happened in a state where abortion isn’t illegal. However, it happened later in the pregnancy, which is against Nebraska’s cut-off date. At the same time, the abortion wasn’t a procedure, it was a pharmaceutical abortion, meaning th…

By Travis Gettys Elon Musk is trying to back out of his $44 billion bid to buy Twitter by claiming the number of active users on the site was far lower than it appears, but the social media company said his methodology is fatally flawed. A new court filing from Twitter calls out the Tesla CEO for making “factually inaccurate, legally insufficient, and commercially irrelevant” claims about the tech company and its users, and said the tool Musk used to calculate the number of inauthentic accounts on the site listed his own account as a likely bot, reported Gizmodo. “The Counterclaims are a made-…

By Sky Palma Speaking on Sebastian Gorka’s America First show, former President Donald Trump took aim at Elon Musk, saying the billionaire CEO is a “fool” to buy Twitter. According to Trump, “a lot of bad things are happening to Elon, he’s got to be little bit careful.” “I think his [Twitter] purchase is being really heavily scrutinized — they’re going after him,” Trump said. “Now, I don’t think that deal’s gonna go through because he’s paying too much. Only a fool would pay that price to these people. I think Twitter could be a failed thing. They want me back on so badly I can’t even tell yo…

By Sky Palma Among the proclamations made by Elon Musk after he announced that he intended to purchase Twitter was his desire to rid the platform of “the spam bots.” But in an announcement this Monday, Musk said he can’t go through with the purchase “unless the social media giant can prove bots make up fewer than 5% of its users,” as Bloomberg reported. The chief of SpaceX as well as Tesla, Musk is currently listed by Forbes as the world’s wealthiest person, with a fortune of about $230 billion, much of it in Tesla stock. Seen by his champions as an iconoclastic genius and by his critics as an…

By Matthew Chapman On Monday, Gizmodo released a new tranche of documents from the so-called “Facebook Papers” — providing new evidence that the company lied about killing an update to the newsfeed feature that would have prevented fake news from spreading, but that also happened to hurt traffic to right-wing websites. “One source with direct knowledge of the discussions recalled a potential update that employees believed would reduce the flow of ‘fake or hoax news stories,'” reported Dell Cameron, Shoshana Wodinsky, and Mack DeGeurin. “A slew of right-wing pages had been flagged by Facebook’s…

By Timothy Evans Former President Donald Trump loudly and proudly proclaimed that he would never return to Twitter after permanently being kicked off the social media platform for violating its policies. And he’s made a big show of trying to launch a competing messaging service called Truth Social, which he claims “encourages an open, free, and honest global conversation without discriminating against political ideology.” But in a securities filing, Axios reports, Trump appears to have given himself “a massive out” for a return to Twitter if Elon Musk agrees to reinstate him if the billionaire…

By David Edwards MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell admitted over the weekend that he had created a new Twitter account despite a lifetime ban. Lindell was banned early in 2021 for repeated violations of Twitter’s “Civic Integrity Policy” after he lied about the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. On Sunday, the MyPillow CEO said that he had rejoined the social media platform because there were other fake accounts using his name. “Hello, everyone at Twitter, this is Mike Lindell,” Lindell said in a tweeted video. “I’m here to tell you about my new account here @MikeJLindell. That’s the only acco…