When the world is a cold dead husk hurtling through the void, Twitter will be remembered for one thing, primarily: it is Donald Trump‘s favourite social media platform to use as a bully pulpit and yell on.
The tech giants meet with President-Elect Trump, and no one looks happy. Apple’s Tim Cook (far right) looks downright terrified. pic.twitter.com/cmOSFDfYfE
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) December 14, 2016
Twitter, however, was conspicuously absent. Why? Politico reports today that it was because the company refused to create a #CrookedHillary emoji for him back during the campaign. Twitter often creates themed emojis attached to popular or topical hashtag, but they apparently wouldn’t do Crooked Hillary.
According to [Trump digital strategy director Gary] Coby, Dorsey personally intervened to block the Trump operation from deploying — as part of a $5 million deal between the social media company and the campaign — an emoji showing, in various renderings, small bags of money being given away or stolen. That emoji would have been offered to users as a replacement for the hashtag #CrookedHillary, a preferred Trump insult for his Democratic opponent.
People are parading around the fact that this is ironic because Trump loves using Twitter so much, but it’s not really. Trump’s presidency will be an enormous prosecution of grievances and grudges, and this is just another one on the line.
