The Daily Caller logo
US

Twitter CEO Apologizes After Forcing 560,000 People To Follow Trump

Daily Caller News Foundation logo
Eric Lieberman Managing Editor
Font Size:

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apologized Saturday for mistakenly forcing around 560,000 users to follow President Donald Trump on Twitter.

Dorsey blamed technical problems stemming from the transfer of the official @POTUS from former President Barack Obama to Trump.

The Twitter co-founder used the social media platform to explain why the problem occurred. He started out by saying that the Obama administration strove for the official White House transition to include digital aspects, such as social media.

“Because @POTUS is an institutional account (not personal) they felt it only fair to transition accounts with followers intact, but 0 tweets,” Dorsey explained, with “they” seemingly referring to the Obama administration.

So it seems that anyone who was following the Obama Administration on Twitter were also set to follow the account for the Trump Administration. (RELATED: Obama Mocks Trump, Says If He Can’t Handle Twitter, He Can’t Handle Nuclear Codes)

But, according to Dorsey, “some people who unfollowed @POTUS in the past were mistakenly marked to now follow @POTUS.”

Dorsey said they estimate around 560,000 Twitter users were affected. “This was a mistake, it wasn’t right, we own it, and we apologize. No excuses,” he continued.

This isn’t the first time a technical glitch has caused problems for the social media company.

Dorsey’s own Twitter account was inadvertently suspended in November. Twitter also overcharged marketers as much as 35 percent after a bug in video advertising metrics was discovered.

Trump has been an active user of Twitter mainly as a means to circumvent the press and get his unadulterated message directly to the public. (RELATED: Twitter Doesn’t Rule Out Banning Trump If He Gets Too Unruly)

Sean Spicer, Trump’s press secretary, is excited about the prospect of Trump continuing to use the social media platform.

Follow Eric on Twitter

Send tips to eric@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

 You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters ✔ ✔ ✔
Daily Caller Shows ✔ ✔ ✔
Ad Free Experience ✔ ✔ ✔
Exclusive Articles ✔ ✔ ✔
Custom Newsletters ✔ ✔ ✔
Editor Daily Rundown ✔ ✔ ✔
Behind The Scenes Coverage ✔ ✔
Award Winning Documentaries ✔ ✔
Patriot War Room ✔ ✔
Patriot Live Chat ✔ ✔
Exclusive Events ✔
Gold Membership Card ✔
Tucker Mug ✔

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel