The Chaser Pretended to Be Trump On Twitter, And Got Suspended In A Blaze Of Glory
Their tweet "don't vote for me, I'm a massive idiot" got 5K likes and retweets before action was taken.
The Chaser lost their blue tick, and for a while, their account too, after pretending to be Donald Trump right before the US elections kicked off.
In classic Chaser fashion, they changed their name and picture on twitter to match Donald Trump’s, which means someone would only know it wasn’t a real account by the handle: @chaser.
The tweet in question was plain and simple, “don’t vote for me, I’m a massive idiot”. But it took off, accumulating 5K likes and retweets before Twitter took action. And to their credit, given Trump is known to tweet nonsense, and people may actually believe the tweet is real for a second, it’s understandable why they took action.
Don't vote for me, I'm a massive idiot
— The Chaser (formerly known as Donald J Trump) (@chaser) November 3, 2020
what does it say that for a millisecond i thought this could be a real tweet he made?
— Germane Queer 🏳️⚧️ (@GermaneQueer) November 3, 2020
The Chaser is known for pulling stunts like this, like that time they dressed up as Osama Bin Laden and got arrested outside the hotel of President George W. Bush.
They do understand why Twitter would react this way though, with The Chaser’s website editor Cam Smith saying “after all, it would not be out of the ordinary for Trump to tweet something so outlandish. If anything this would have been one of his more reasonable tweets, so we could see how people might get mixed up”.
THEY TOOK OUR TICK
— The Chaser (formerly known as Donald J Trump) (@chaser) November 3, 2020
“It’s impressive that Twitter only took 20 minutes to unverify our tweet — given it took them almost four years to start fact checking the actual President. I guess that’s to be expected though, we all know comedians words are much more dangerous than those of the guy who controls 50% of the world’s nukes.”
They raise a good point, as social media networks like Twitter and Facebook have come under great (and justified) scrutiny over their role in allowing the spread of misinformation. Both social media companies have promised to take additional steps to stop election-related misinformation after previously refusing to do so. This includes pop up links directing users to authoritative information on social media posts that are about voting.
We are yet to see whether their policies will be enough, after all, this will be their biggest test yet.