Joe Biden's Twitter, Facebook Following Up by Almost 300,000 After Donald Trump Blocked
President-elect Joe Biden's social media following surged on Thursday as current leader Donald Trump found himself in an unprecedented situation: blocked from his Twitter account then "indefinitely" thrown off Facebook and Instagram.
While Trump attracted around 24,800 new Twitter followers on Thursday, Biden's profile gained more than 257,900 new followers, according to Factba.se, an analytics platform that has been monitoring and archiving the current president's online activity.
On Facebook on Thursday, Biden's page "likes" expanded by over 39,000, according to statistics from social media tracking platform Social Blade, which noted that Trump's Facebook account had pulled in a total of 47,158 new likes the same day.
The statistics suggest that on Thursday alone, Biden gained around 296,000 accounts across Facebook and Twitter, compared to around 72,000 amassed by Trump.
And while that is only a snapshot of a single day, broader patterns are clear in the direct comparison of the two follower count datasets published by Factba.se.
While Biden's numbers appear to be consistently growing, Trump's are far less stable—logging drops on multiple consecutive days on his Twitter profile in the past two months, especially since losing the 2020 presidential election to the former Veep.
On social media this week, Biden has repeatedly addressed the violent riots that were sparked on Wednesday as a large mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol Building, calling those responsible "insurrectionists and domestic terrorists."
The incoming commander-in-chief, who is set to be inaugurated on January 20, said in a Facebook post that Trump had "unleashed an all-out assault on the institutions of our democracy" and the siege was "a culmination of that unrelenting attack."
On Wednesday, Biden gained 355,720 new Twitter followers, compared to the 166,073 attracted by Trump's account over the same period, according to Factba.se.
Overall, Trump's Twitter following of around 88.7 million remains significantly larger than Biden's 23 million. Trump's peak subscriber count on Twitter occurred on November 17 last year, when he had a total of 88,961,97 followers. Since that date, statistics suggest Trump's count is down by about 187,000, and Biden's is up by over 4 million.
Trump returned to Twitter late Thursday in the wake of a 12-hour-ban that was enacted on Wednesday amid the Capitol riots, when he published updates that doubled down on his false claims of election fraud and described the mob as "very special."
Trump published a video on Thursday in which he called the attack "heinous" and said violent rioters "do not represent" the country, asserting lawbreakers "will pay."
Also on Thursday, Trump released a statement that conceded his election loss to Biden and said there will be an "orderly transition" on January 20. He made the same pledge in the most-recent Twitter video, describing 2020 as a "challenging time for our people."
While the president's Twitter account appears to have been reinstated, the platform has warned further violations would result in a permanent suspension.
For Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was previously highly reluctant to restrict the president's speech, Trump's statements after the Capitol riot on Wednesday seemingly crossed a line, and he announced Trump's page would no longer be active.
"We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great. Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete," Zuckerberg said.
Trump accounts were also blocked this week by Snapchat and Shopify, while his video addressing the Capitol Building riots on Wednesday was removed by YouTube.
