Facebook users shared a screenshot that appeared to show US President Donald Trump on the social media platform Parler. This is not true: the message comes from a fan account. At the time of publication of this article, Trump does not have an official Parler account.
The screenshot was uploaded to Facebook on January 7 and has so far (here) received more than 530 likes.
It shows a post on Parler, a self-styled ‘free speech-driven’ space (here), from an account called ‘President Trump Tweets’. The uploader said: “Since #twitter and #fakebook took down my speech, it’s here !! Share widely !!!! with hashtags like “stop the steal” and “stop the censorship” (here).
Some Facebook users left comments and gave the impression that they believed it was a real Trump account, such as’ wondered how long it would take to get to Parler as everyone took down his accounts’ and ‘Got him found … thanks! ”.
However, Trump did not create a Parler account. The profile “President Trump Tweets” is a fan account created in July 2020. The posts are a mixture of copied Trump tweets and comments that refer to him in the third person, for example “President Trump is good” (here) and “Trump was right” (here).
The Parler account may have misled people into thinking it was run by Trump himself, as the profile photo matches his real Twitter account (twitter.com/realDonaldTrump). However, the biography contains links to fan pages like “Trumpettesters.com” for “Trumpsters and Trumpettes” (here).
While Trump himself does not have a Parler account, the official Trump campaign has had a profile since December 2018 (here). The page contains a Verified Influencer badge, which, according to Parler’s definition, is intended for ‘people with a large following who have the potential to be targeted for imitation, burglary or phishing campaigns.’
According to Parler, the badge protects the person’s authenticity and proves their identity. In contrast, President Trump’s tweets have a verified badge of real member, which ‘does not mean that the person they claim to be is just that they are real people’ (here).
The image came to light after Twitter and Facebook temporarily closed Trump’s accounts on Wednesday to curb his unfounded claims of election fraud following riots in Washington (here).
The “speech” mentioned in the screenshot refers to a video in which Trump encouraged protesters to go home, but insisted against evidence that the presidential election was fraudulent. The clip was removed by Facebook and YouTube, which are owned by Alphabet’s Google, while Twitter said Trump’s account would be closed until the misleading video was removed.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg announced on January 7 that the block on Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts would be “extended for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” (here)
VERDICT
Untrue. With the publication of this article, President Trump did not create an official Parler account after being temporarily blocked by mainstream social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. The profile, which was shared online, was created in July 2020 by a Trump supporter.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our work to actually check social media posts.