President Donald Trump on Friday fired off an angry tweet declaring Twitter a national security threat after #DiaperDon went viral following a tense news conference in which he repeated his unsubstantiated claims of “massive fraud” and said he is not ready to concede.
“Twitter is sending out totally false ‘Trends’ that have absolutely nothing to do with what is really trending in the world. They make it up, and only negative ‘stuff’,” the US president tweeted without providing evidence in the early hours of Friday morning.
“For purposes of National Security, Section 230 must be immediately terminated!!!” Trump added, in reference to part of a 1996 law which protects websites from lawsuits over content posted by users. Any changes to these protections would fundamentally change how the internet works.
Trump did not say which trending topic upset him, but following Thursday’s press briefing, which saw him furiously assail a reporter from behind a surprisingly small desk, the hashtag #DiaperDon surged towards the top of Twitter’s trending list across the world.
MeidasTouch, an anti-Trump political action committee, took credit for the initial use of the hashtag on Friday morning.
“We made #DiaperDon the number one trend in the US,” the group tweeted, adding: “Trump had a meltdown and wanted to declare Twitter trends a national security threat.”
After Trump was spotted sitting at the miniature desk, another user wrote: “The staffer in charge of the optics of this tiny Resolute Desk must be a secret resister. His makeup artist has clearly always been one of us #DiaperDon”
#DiaperDon pic.twitter.com/rhj6u6UdtL
— MeidasTouch.com (@MeidasTouch) November 27, 2020
The staffer in charge of the optics of this tiny Resolute Desk must be a secret resister
His makeup artist has clearly always been one of us#DiaperDon pic.twitter.com/EaH1RC433I
— Lindy Li (@lindyli) November 27, 2020
