Donald Trump Twitter (Photo : Twitter)
Most presidents or national leaders have a so-called honeymoon period with the media and the country he or she leads during the first 100 days in office. But it was not the case for the combative Donald Trump who had accused credible media organizations such as CNN of making fake news even before he took his oath of office on Jan. 20.
As a result, there are Women’s Marches against the 45th president of the U.S. not only in key American cities but other global cities as well. In China, he antagonized the country by tweeting about Beijing claim over disputed South China Sea islands which angered Chinese.
Fake Tweets
Given those circumstances, it is not surprising that despite Twitter being blocked in China, Chinese are making fake tweets using the handle @realdonaldtrump which has become the latest Internet sensation in the Asian giant. Jike, a startup in Shanghai, opened a website where locals could generate images of fake tweets that seem to have been sent by Trump himself, New York Post reported.
The fake tweets includes the president’s avatar and a real-time timestamp. After four days since Jike opened the website, around more than 1 million fake tweets in English and Chinese have been generated. The fake tweets often imitate the tone and characteristics of Trump’s real tweets often full of exclamation points. The fake tweets are then shared on social media sites.
Alternative Facts
The fake tweets mania comes at a time that even Facebook are legitimate news organizations are becoming stricter in weeding out fake news. It also comes on the heels of the phrase “alternative facts” becoming a buzz word following its usage by Kellyanne Conway, adviser of Trump, over the embarrassing photos of significantly smaller crowd at the Jan. 20 inauguration rite for Trump in comparison to the humongous crowd during Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony, Bloomberg reported.
Apparently, the Chinese users of Jike’s website are just enjoying themselves generating alternative tweets.
