Rep. Jeff Van Drew says he deleted his Twitter account not out of solidarity with former President Donald Trump but because of the toxic culture on social media.
“Got tired of it. Tired of all the negativity,” Van Drew told the Washington Examiner on Thursday. “It’s just degenerated to a point that there’s so much hateful stuff and so much anger, so much hurt. I have so many other ways of putting information.”
Van Drew’s Twitter account went offline on Wednesday, but his Facebook page, which he still intends to use to communicate with his constituents, remains active. The New Jersey Republican switched from the Democratic Party during Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 and earned criticism for pledging his “undying support” to Trump, though he later walked back that comment.
The deletion, he said, has “nothing at all” to do with Trump being banished from Twitter and other social media platforms, though he noted he gets along with Trump and considers him a friend. The congressman also said he was not making a statement about the problems with Big Tech.
“I do have issues with Big Tech — which, you know, really, truthfully, can go across the spectrum and affect people whether they are liberal or conservative,” Van Drew said. “Big Tech has too much power. [Section] 230 protects them too much.”
He was not particularly active on the platform.
“I know some people enjoy it, it can be interesting. But it just got to the point, it wasn’t me,” Van Drew said. “It wasn’t good for my staff, it wasn’t good for me, it wasn’t good for my constituents, and my constituents don’t particularly use it or like it.”
Van Drew is not the only member of Congress to turn away from social media. Rep. Chip Roy is taking a break from both Facebook and Twitter.
“It reduces the value of communication to statements graded by ‘likes’ or being ‘ratioed,’ and other mechanisms that don’t reflect real human response or quality of thought,” the Texas Republican wrote in an op-ed last month.
