Twitter, cultivation of hoaxes in favor of Trump

Christian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P]

In April, strong criticism was levelled at now-runner-up for re-election to the U.S. presidency, Donald Trump, when the president suggested, at a public event, the injection of disinfectants to combat COVID-19, a disease caused by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 - whose outbreak was located in an exotic market in Wuhan, China. At that time, the President of the United States declared at a press conference that if there was "some way to clean up, like an injection. It would be interesting to check.

This information was quickly distributed on Twitter; however, the company did not stop the messages encouraging people to inject household disinfectants, so much so that the New York Poison Control Center immediately reported a hundred emergency calls during April for ingesting household cleaning products. However, Twitter's action to stop and push for accurate information from the scientific community was overshadowed by Trump's statements, so much so that it became a trend with the absurd #InjectDesinfectant hashtag. Any self-medication without expert consent should be discouraged. If you have symptoms of COVID-19, please see a health care professional.

In time, Twitter clarified - via email - the Reuters news that the hashtags in trend had to be manipulated at will so that they would not be suggested on the social network; however, the damage was already done, but that was not all, the Twitter response supported Trump's "satirical" statements; in an official statement, the social network said that: "Context matters. Tweets that are clearly satirical in nature, that discuss or report on timely issues about COVID-19 that do not prompt action do not violate our rules.

With this, we can deduce that Twitter will not take action against false information that could cause physical harm to people, since it is up to the user to decide if the information he receives on this social network is satirical or not. It follows that Twitter is not there to verify whether the information in trend, like Trump's, is true or not.

This is important because, as Twitter states, "context matters". On October 22, it was revealed that Victor Gevers, an ethical hacker from the Netherlands, was able to access Donald Trump's Twitter account with his username and password - "maga2020!", in case you're interested in the data-, this lack of attention from both Twitter and the US president -which is in the spotlight given the upcoming presidential elections to be held on November 3-, puts at risk the strong public opinion with which the president influences the global context.

Fortunately for mankind - since Twitter will not be responsible for Trump's satire - Gevers "only" took screenshots from the @realDonaldTrump account. Obviously, this is not only the fault of the president of the United States, but of Twitter. Well, nowadays, Twitter, upon detecting an uncommon login, immediately informs the account holder, in this case, Trump and his cabinet... the situation becomes more alarming when we realize that the national security of the country that dropped the atomic bomb on Japan in World War II is also compromised.

On this occasion, Twitter did not suggest identity verification, as many of us who logged in are required to confirm; either by correctly entering the email linked to the account or the phone with which the Twitter account was registered. Neither of these things happened. This situation highlights Twitter's lack of attention and makes us doubt the role it -not- plays in people's safety.

In the end, it had to be Gevers who alerted the U.S. Federal Secret Service agency to please change the password and activate the two-factor authentication. The Secret Service welcomed the suggestion of the Dutchman. Twitter had nothing to do with the alert about the security flaws of the president, but as a matter of fact, in October 2016, the same Twitter account with the password "youarefired" was also violated.

An unfortunate tweet can lead to catastrophe. We're talking about people who successfully followed Donald Trump's instructions in suggesting the erroneous indication to inject household disinfectant. But... if Gevers had had other intentions? Surely Twitter would have washed its hands of it.

It is important to note that the United States, according to Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists "United States nuclear forces, 2020"In early 2019, the United States Department of Defense possessed an estimated 3,800 nuclear defenses that could be launched by 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft.

Cristian Carlos is a writer, journalist and sociologist. He is the editor of Peninsula 360 Press.