'Dark, paranoid material': Trump hit for promoting 'outlandish information from anyone'
Former President Donald Trump is wildly spreading fake rumors and hoaxes on his Truth Social platform as fast as he sees them, according to a new analysis from The New York Times.
A review of thousands of posts, or "Truths" as they are called on the site, reveals that "often multiple times a day, the former president is concocting or promoting dark, paranoid material and pushing it out to his millions of followers," the Times reported.
"Mr. Trump is so hungry for this content that he appears to be willing to share outlandish information from anyone, including both well-known conspiracists and anonymous accounts that tag him."
Out of all of the posts, the Times identified 330 in particular that "described both a false, secretive plot against Mr. Trump or the American people and a specific entity supposedly responsible for it" — including claims that the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was a false flag operation by the government, or even that the FBI arranged the assassination attempts against him.
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Trump wrote 75 percent of these claims himself, but the rest of the time he simply shared the opinions of random people on the site that Trump just happened to see and promote. The analysis identified some 170 accounts Trump amplified, many of which routinely promote baseless conspiracy theories, the Times reported.
Trump founded the Truth Social site, and ultimately turned it into a public company under Trump Media and Technology Group, after he was kicked off of Twitter following the January 6 attack. Tech billionaire Elon Musk, who is now one of Trump's most dedicated MAGA surrogates, allowed Trump back onto Twitter, since renamed X, after buying the site — but for the most part, Trump has continued to use his own platform.
The public offering from Trump Media was worth billions of dollars in value to Trump, but has lost a huge chunk of its value since then as it has become clear the company has no long-term plan to become profitable.