Twitter’s head of security is forced into hiding to escape MAGA supporters
- On This Day In The Trump Administration
- May 25, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: May 27, 2024
May 26: On This Day In 2020
As the 2020 election drew closer, Trump ramped up his preemptive and phony claims that if he should lose, it would only be because the election had been “rigged.” (He also used that same argument when he lost the popular vote in 2016. His allies are already saying now, in 2024, that they won’t necessarily “accept” the results from this November either.)
Trump’s preferred megaphone for spreading this lie about the health of American democracy was Twitter.
After years of this nonsense, Twitter finally had enough of serving as the delivery device for Trump’s harmful, divisive, and shameful misinformation. At the urging of Dr. Yoel Roth, Twitter’s head of security, the company finally did something about it: OTDI 2020 they fact-checked one unhinged Trump tweet by posting a “clarification” beneath it.
Trump – who is not accustomed to anyone telling him “no”-- was, shall we say, displeased. So he concocted another lie, this time accusing Twitter of “violating” his First Amendment rights. (The First Amendment, of course, has nothing to do with the conduct of private social media companies. Thus it isn’t relevant to this situation.) Note too Trump's artful use of the "election interference" smear: Another example of his "I'm Rubber, You're Glue" compulsion.
Trump staffer Kellyanne Conway then fueled the fire by publicly publishing Roth’s name and title.
So MAGA’s pushback was fierce…and dangerous. Trump’s ranting inspired his fans to issue ominous threats to Roth. Later, Elon Musk piled on, eventually forcing Roth and his family to move and to go into hiding.
As if we all now live in a banana republic.
Mike Pence, who also had to flee physical violence from a Trump-inspired mob, could empathize.
Dive Deeper
Roth wrote about his plight in the NYT
The tweet story is at CNN
HuffPo has more details
Summary: Forced to escape a Trump- and Musk-inspired mob, Twitter's head of security goes into hiding