Jan. 6 hearing shows that pro-Trump social media survives -- in spite of bans

Supporters of Donald Trump "scrambled to defend him online" after prime-time hearings by the Jan. 6 select committee, The Washington Post reported Friday.

"Trump War Room, a Twitter account once run by his reelection campaign, tweeted, “Trump and the rally had nothing to do with the Capitol breach!" defying the House committee’s effort to pin responsibility for the riot squarely on Trump," the newspaper reported.

But the account, now managed by Trump's Save America PAC, only has 1.5 million followers. On the day of the Jan. 6 coup attempt, Trump's Twitter account was followed by 88.6 million accounts.

"On the message board Patriots.win — a spinoff of TheDonald.win, where members had shared ideas on how to sneak guns into Washington before the riot — a popular thread Friday called Jan. 6 'the most patriotic thing I’ve ever seen' and said anyone who disagrees is 'an enemy of the nation.' And on pro-Trump channels on the chat service Telegram, supporters ridiculed the hearing as overly scripted or a partisan circus, if they mentioned it at all," the newspaper reported.

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While Trump himself complained about the hearings on his Truth Social platform, he was unable to participate in the larger conversation taking place on the major platforms.

"On Twitter, #January6thCommitteeHearings was the top trending topic in the United States. Select Committee Vice Chair Liz Cheney was the number two trending topic," Raw Story reported Thursday evening. "Ivanka came in at number five, Bill Barr was at seven, Pence was nine, Jared was twelve, Select Committee Chair Bennie Thompson was fifteen, democracy sixteen, and pardons came in at nineteen."

Billionaire Elon Musk has said he will restore Trump's Twitter account if he is able to buy the company.

"It also underscored how the social media landscape has shifted in the 17 months since Trump was suspended by the leading online platforms for his role in fanning the violent attempts to overturn Joe Biden’s election as president," The Post reported. "For the most part, Trump and some of his most ardent backers were relegated to smaller platforms as they sought to respond. The change was evident in the video montage the Jan. 6 committee showed of the attack, where a rioter could be heard shouting a Trump tweet over a megaphone to urge the crowd into the Capitol’s halls."

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The newspaper noted that Trump's, "Truth Social account has about 3 million followers, or less than 4 percent of the 88 million Twitter followers he had before his ban."

Read the full report.