How a clever Trump got entangled in accusing himself of rigging the 2020 election has now become public. Donald Trump blamed his presidential administration on Tuesday for rigging the 2020 election against him. But understanding why he did so requires some important background about the political moment.
Fans of Trump, particularly from the far-right edge of his support base, used social media to mock, mislead, and at times harass his opponents. Russian actors were simultaneously using the platforms to sow divisions in the U.S., albeit with limited effect. This was a classic example of conflated causes.
Then 2020 arrived. The existing tensions over how social media companies policed content and users were supercharged by COVID-19 and the election. During this time, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded to a request from the hard-right Republican-led House Judiciary Committee with a letter broadly addressing the debate.
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In his letter, Zuckerberg addressed three issues: Facebook’s approach to COVID-19 misinformation, the decision to limit sharing of the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, and the foundation’s contributions to the Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), aimed at backstopping resources for elections administration.
Zuckerberg criticized the Biden administration for its efforts to get Facebook to address COVID-19 misinformation—a political win for his Republican critics on the first point. The second point, about Hunter Biden’s laptop, is not new. It has been understood for years that the FBI, hoping to avoid a 2016-like scenario in which foreign actors flood the election with stolen information, was advising private companies on what to watch for.
Zuckerberg himself has previously stated that warnings from the government led to Facebook’s decision to briefly limit the New York Post story. Trump then shared that post on Truth Social, the social media company he helped found after he was banned from Facebook and Twitter following the Capitol riot. He wrote, “Zuckerberg admits that the White House pushed to SUPPRESS HUNTER BIDEN LAPTOP STORY.” “IN OTHER WORDS, the 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WAS RIGGED.”
The last point in Zuckerberg’s letter dealt with the contribution to CTCL. It is ironic: To alleviate pressure he has felt from government actors, Zuckerberg once again sought to give them what they want. In short, Trump has become a prey of his own tactics.
