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Farewell to the Frictionless President

Adam Conner marks the end of what he describes as a "frictionless" presidency and describes how Donald Trump was able to use Twitter uninhibited, from spreading disinformation to firing Senate-confirmed officials.

The violent and tragic Trump presidency is finally coming to an end, with an anything-but-peaceful transfer of power. In the future, the history books will forever record the way that Trump used Twitter, and the way that Twitter let him abuse the service until the point of actual insurrection.

I have been pondering what it was about Donald Trump and his use of Twitter that made this era so wild. It finally dawned on me in the wake of Trump’s permanent suspension from Twitter (whatever that means, make it permanent): it wasn’t just how he used those tweets to spread disinformation, attack random individuals, or fire Senate-confirmed officials. It was that Donald Trump has been using Twitter exactly the way the product was designed and built to work at its most fundamental level.

The above excerpt was originally published in Margins. Click here to view the full article.

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Authors

Adam Conner

Vice President, Technology Policy