section_path: Political practice and rhetoric/Social media
section_name: Social media
paragraph_text: Social media
  
  Trump's social media presence attracted worldwide attention after he joined Twitter in 2009. He posted frequently during his 2016 campaign and as president until Twitter banned him after the January 6 attack. He often used Twitter to communicate directly with the public and sideline the press; in 2017, his press secretary said that his tweets constituted official presidential statements.
  
  After years of criticism for allowing Trump to post misinformation and falsehoods, Twitter began to tag some of his tweets with fact-checks in May 2020. In response, he said social media platforms "totally silence" conservatives and he would "strongly regulate, or close them down". After the January 6 attack, he was banned from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other platforms. The loss of his social media presence diminished his ability to shape events and correlated with a dramatic decrease in the volume of misinformation on Twitter. In February 2022, he launched social media platform Truth Social where he only attracted a fraction of his Twitter following. Elon Musk, after acquiring Twitter, reinstated his Twitter account in November 2022. Meta Platforms ' two-year ban lapsed in January 2023, allowing him to return to Facebook and Instagram.