Joe Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign has joined Truth Social, a rightwing social media platform created by the Republican former president Donald Trump.
Using the handle @BidenHQ, the account says it is a “project of Biden-Harris 2024” and includes a banner image that says “the malarkey ends here”, referencing the president’s signature colloquialism.
The campaign wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it joined Truth Social “mostly because we thought it would be very funny”.
For its profile image, the campaign chose a depiction of Biden as “Dark Brandon”, a meme that shows Biden with laser eyes and stems from the “Let’s Go Brandon” chant rightwing circles used to stand in for saltier language against the president. The stunt is the latest in a line of quips and memes from the president’s digital team.
While the new account is meant to be in jest, it’s clear the Biden campaign is also using it to reach conservatives. The first few posts today shared conservatives either giving Biden credit or criticizing Trump.
“Well. Let’s see how this goes. Converts welcome!” Biden’s campaign wrote in its first post on the platform.
Biden’s camp told Fox News Digital that using Truth Social would “meet voters where they are” while also combatting misinformation about Biden that spreads on the platform.
As mainstream social media platforms have attempted to clamp down on misinformation and hateful conduct on their sites, places like Truth Social have cropped up with missions to minimally moderate the content people post, allowing misinformation to spread more easily.
The platform is not widely used. Estimates show that Truth Social has about 2 million users; Facebook has nearly 3 billion, while X has about a half-billion.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
