- Twitter users on Saturday noticed that President Donald Trump’s account was recommended when they searched the term “racist” on the platform.
- “If an account is mentioned often alongside certain terms, it can become algorithmically surfaced together as a recommendation,” the spokesperson said.
- The president just over a week ago put forth an executive order to increase regulation faced by social media companies, including Twitter, after it placed a fact-checking label over his tweet. It later labeled another one of his tweets for violating its rules about violence.
- Despite his ongoing war of words against Twitter, the president sent 200 tweets out on Friday, which is the most he’s ever used the platform in a single day.
Twitter users on Saturday noted that when they searched for the word “racist” on the platform, Twitter pointed them toward the account of President Donald Trump.
“The top result for racist on Twitter is the president of the United States,” The Verge’s Tom Warren tweeted.
Business Insider was able to replicate this on Saturday afternoon by searching for both the terms “racist” and “racism.”Advertisement
A spokesperson for Twitter on Saturday told Business Insider that the president is listed under these terms as a result of the company’s algorithm, which is triggered by user behavior.
“If an account is mentioned often alongside certain terms, it can become algorithmically surfaced together as a recommendation,” the spokesperson said.
As Insider previously noted, it’s been a rocky few weeks between the president and Twitter. On May 28, he issued an executive order in an attempt to regulate it and other companies like Instagram, Facebook, and Youtube. The order directly followed the company’s decision to fact-check his tweets and was issued the day before it flagged another one of his posts as violent.
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—Tom Warren (@tomwarren) June 6, 2020
Despite the ongoing beef, the president has continued to use Twitter to disseminate his platform amid ongoing nationwide protests over the police killing of George Floyd. On Friday, Trump tweeted or retweeted exactly 200 posts during the day — the highest volume posts he’s made within a 24-hour span ever, surpassing the 142 tweets he sent during a single day during his Senate impeachment trial.
Throughout his administration, the president has often faced allegations of racism or stroking white supremacist ideology, though he has denied them and reiterated he believes himself to be the “least racist person in the world.” When PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor asked Trump at a press briefing Friday how he planned to combat racism in the US amid ongoing protests surrounding the death of Geroge Floyd, Trump pointed toward recent economic gains amid the COVID-19 pandemic.Advertisement
“And by the way, what’s happened to our country, and what you now see — what’s been happening — is the greatest thing that can happen toward race relations, toward the African American community, the Asian American, the Hispanic American community, for women, for everything,” Trump said.
The White House did not immediately return Business Insider’s request for comment on Saturday.