The Atlantic Just Showed Us How to Cover Trump’s Return to Twitter




After months of making promises, Elon Musk has reinstated Donald Trump’s Twitter account. He did so after running a Twitter poll to which roughly 15 million people responded. A narrow margin, 51.8%, voted in favor of reinstating the former president. But even if they hadn’t, Musk likely would have done it anyway. Since taking over the platform, its new CEO has proven he has no intentions of turning the company he paid $44 billion for into a profitable venture. He’s been more concerned with promoting content from accounts that spread disinformation. According to a special report from NewsGuard, accounts with high levels of disinformation have seen Twitter engagement surge by 57.04% since Musk took over.

The account @realDonaldTrump has officially been reinstated but the man behind it hasn’t issued any new tweets yet. As Quartz lays out, he has legal obligations to Truth Social that prevent him from immediately rushing back to his favorite platform. And while Trump has claimed he isn’t interested in returning to Twitter, that’s highly unlikely. Truth Social has been a colossal failure and Twitter provides him with the attention he craves above all else. Regardless of how much we’d like to believe he won’t, Trump will be back to tweeting. The only question is when. Quinta Jurecic recently took an in-depth look at the impending problem of Trump’s return to Twitter in The Atlantic. More specifically, she examined the dangerous ramifications for democracy it poses and the responsibility of the media to ensure that it is covered accurately without showering Trump or Musk with undeserved attention. In the article’s subheading, she states “Two wealthy and self-involved men are seeking the attention they crave,” later outlining the best ways for the media not to give it to them.