Twitter, cultivation of hoaxes in favor of Trump

Christian Carlos. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P] .

In April, strong criticism rained down on Donald Trump, now running for re-election to the presidency of the United States, when he suggested, at a public event, the injection of disinfectants to combat COVID-19, a disease caused by the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus - the outbreak of which was located in an exotic market in Wuhan, China. At that time, the President of the United States stated at a press conference that if there was "some way to do a clean-up, like an injection. It would be interesting to check it out.

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

In time, Twitter clarified - via email - to Reuters news agency that trending hashtags had to be manipulated at will so that these were not suggested on the social network; however, the damage was already done, but that was not all, Twitter's response backed up Trump's "satirical" statements; in an official statement, the social network said, "Context matters. Tweets that are clearly satirical in nature, that discuss or report timely COVID-19 issues that do not incite action in general 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 whether the information they receive on this social network is satirical or not. It follows that Twitter is not there to verify whether trending information, such as Trump's, is true or not.

This is relevant because, as Twitter states, "context matters". On October 22, it became known 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 are interested in that fact ? this lack of attention from both Twitter and the president of the American nation ? who is in the spotlight given the upcoming presidential elections to be held on November 3 ? put at risk the strong public opinion with which the president influences the global context.

Fortunately for humanity - since Twitter will not be held responsible for Trump's satire - Gevers "only" took screenshots of the @realDonaldTrump account. Clearly, this is not just the fault of the president of the United States, but of Twitter. For, currently, 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 an identity verification, as many of us logged-in users 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 those two things happened. This situation highlights Twitter's lack of attention and makes us question the role it ?doesn't? play with respect to people's safety.

In the end, it had to be Gevers who alerted the U.S. Secret Service federal agency to please change the password and activate two-factor authentication. The Secret Service was grateful for the Dutchman's suggestion. Twitter had nothing to do with the alert about the security breaches of the president, but for the record, in October 2016, the same Twitter account was also breached with the password "youarefired", "youarefired", "youarefired", "youarefired", "youarefired", "youarefired" and "youarefired". ? "youarefired".

One unfortunate tweet can lead to catastrophe. We are talking about people who successfully followed Donald Trump's instructions by suggesting the erroneous indication to inject household disinfectant. But what 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?, it states that "As of early 2019, the U.S. Department of Defense possessed an estimated arsenal of 3,800 nuclear defenses that could be delivered by 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft."

Cristian Carlos is a writer, journalist and sociologist. Editor of Peninsula 360 Press.