It’s 2020 and boomers are still failing at the internet. At least, that seems to be the case for President Donald Trump who tweeted a link to a satirical news story claiming Twitter shut down on Thursday to prevent the spread of negative news coverage of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
“Wow, this has never been done in history,” Trump tweeted along with the article. “This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T.” For the record, that interview he's referring to was actually Biden's Town Hall meeting that was held in lieu of a virtual debate with Trump because the president refused to attend.
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Twitter Shuts Down Entire Network To Slow Spread Of Negative Biden News https://t.co/JPmjOrKPcr via @TheBabylonBee Wow, this has never been done in history. This includes his really bad interview last night. Why is Twitter doing this. Bringing more attention to Sleepy Joe & Big T
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 16, 2020
We've all heard Trump rail about "fake news" for the last five years when the press is critical of his administration, but it's obvious that he could benefit from better media literacy now that he's reading and believing actual fake news. The article in question was published by The Babylon Bee, a right-wing Christian website that publishes religious and political satire and describes itself as "the world’s best satire site, totally inerrant in all its truth claims." Trump apparently didn't get the memo, although it sounds like his administration emulates the site's philosophy.
It's unclear whether Trump read past the headline, and got to the part in the story about Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey smashing the "glass box in his office" that reads, "Break In Case Of Bad Publicity For Democrats." But it didn't take long for thousands of people to start making fun of the president on Twitter. Even The Babylon Bee tweeted an article about the whole thing, joking that Trump had declared the website "His Most-Trusted News Source."
And because the president doesn't like to appear, uh, dense, he attempted to walk back his initial tweet — not to claim that he knew the article was satire but just to clarify one thing. "Big T was not a reference to me, but rather to Big Tech, which should have been properly pointed out in Twitter’s Fake Trending Section!" Trump wrote.
So, yes, the President — who has spent his entire time in office calling out the Fake News Media — has revealed to us that his Real News Media comes from a site that is actually a satire. And you absolutely cannot make this stuff up.