Media critics and anti-Trump skeptics are charging that President Trump may have violated Twitter’s terms of service Tuesday evening for initiating a nuclear button-measuring contest with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. “I think they’re trying to decide if this kind of tweet—referring to a nuclear button that he knows how to use and he knows how it works—whether it actually is a violation of the terms of service because it may threaten violence,” claimed CNN’s Brian Stelter, who said he asked Twitter for a response after Trump hit “publish.”
It’s a stretch. (Should Congress ever get around to passing another authorization for use of military force against foreign adversaries, representatives and senators should think twice before tweeting the PDF.) The real complaint is with the substance of what Trump says, not where he says it; he threatened Kim Jong-un with “fire, fury, and frankly power, the likes of which the world has never seen” in front of reporters at one of his golf resorts, not on social media.
Donald Trump is not going to have his tweeting privileges revoked. But lawmakers and staff who wish he would curtail the habit aren’t off-base. Twitter provides the president a unique space to make shocking comments, and with more frequency. It is relevant how he uses it, and that he uses it so often, above what media he otherwise would use to communicate.
The pressure inside Twitter’s walls causes the medium to pop every time the president tweets something shocking.
Relevant to how the media and public consume the president’s statements, Twitter is a deceptively concentrated atmosphere: Because it’s an oligarchy and amplifies information with unique power and rapidity, a relative handful of users can make the whole thing pop immediately. Trump’s spoken quips can be just as lasting as his tweeted ones. But on Twitter, Trump reaches an audience of tens of millions instantly; and among those millions are a select group of influential people, be they in media, politics, entertainment, or otherwise, able to consume and react right away. All these people exist in the same space, on the same app. Other media are more dispersed, both in how producers convey information and how viewers and readers consume and share it. Twitter is an oil slick. Trump’s tweets are a match.
Tweeting is messaging in abundance.
Yes, Trump made his remarks about John McCain’s imprisonment in Vietnam and Megyn Kelly during interviews. He’s capable of being off-the-cuff and off-color in any circumstance. But on Twitter, he has an unlimited number of opportunities to do so—there is no logistical or time constraint preventing him from sounding off directly to the public whenever he wants to.
Former Twitter spokesman and Democratic Capitol Hill flak Nu Wexler tweeted, “A lot of people want to believe Trump would be a conventional president without Twitter. He’d just call into Fox & Friends, Hannity, or Judge Jeanine, and say the same things.” Sometimes he would, sure. But would every nutty thing the president has tweeted since being in office have wound up as a sound bite on cable news if he lacked social media? Doubtful. There’s no way to prove that Trump wouldn’t appear on Fox & Friends five days a week if he didn’t have Twitter. But even for this unorthodox White House, it’s difficult to believe he would subject himself to that much media exposure, regardless of it being in friendly confines.
To that point, Twitter is the president’s public availability.
He rarely takes questions after making public statements.
It’s arguable that if you take away Twitter, Trump just finds another medium to provide comment. Ultimately, the principal of any office has the final say. But it’s much easier for staff to manage a process in which the president has to make contact with an outlet or organize an event, than a process in which he watches television and jots down thoughts in the world’s most-read diary.
Twitter has no restraints on Trump.
It goes like this: The president tweets something wacky; because it’s on Twitter and he holds so few press availabilities, he isn’t asked about it; instead the press secretary gets asked about it at the daily briefing; the spin ensues; meanwhile, unnamed aides are quoted in the Times as being worried about the ramifications of this latest outburst.
Each step has this in common: There are no consequences for the president. Exchanges with the press, in which it has the opportunity to hold him accountable, have the potential, however minute, to be deterrents of Trump’s wildest instincts. Twitter is relevant in this instance because it has no such checking quality. Trump often goes off-script during public remarks—but he only gives so many public remarks. On Twitter, accountability and availability have no meaning.
The only place you can retweet fringe British nationalists and memes of a bloodied CNN logo on the bottom of Trump’s boot is … Twitter.
He’s not going to wave a crazy video or share praise from a servile alt-right wackadoodle in the physical world, like he’s showing off an executive order. There is actual material the president can communicate on Twitter he cannot communicate through other media.
This underscores the point that while the medium doesn’t matter more than the man, it still matters. The Trump presidency would look different without his favorite communications tool, for certain. But it would sound a little different, too.
