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‘Former President Arrested and Incarcerated at Fulton County Jail in Georgia’
Former President Donald Trump has made a return to the social media platform Twitter (now X) after a ban of over two years. On August 24th, 2023, Trump tweeted for the first time since his account was reinstated on November 19th, 2022. In his first post, Trump shared an image of his mug shot taken when he was booked at the Fulton County jail in Georgia. The mug shot is accompanied by the captions “Election Interference” and “Never Surrender!” as well as a URL to his website. In a lengthy note on his website, Trump protested his arrest, stating, “Today, at the notoriously violent jail in Fulton County, Georgia, I was ARRESTED despite having committed NO CRIME.”
Last year in November, Elon Musk conducted a Twitter poll to determine whether Trump should regain access to his account. The poll resulted in 51.8 percent of over 15 million votes in favor of reinstating the former president. Musk acknowledged that some of the poll’s activity came from “bot and troll armies.” Prior to the poll, Musk had mentioned the possibility of a newly formed moderation council deciding on Trump’s reinstatement, but this idea was not pursued.
In early 2021, Twitter banned Trump for violating its rules against inciting violence. Initially, the ban lasted for 12 hours, but it was later made permanent by the company. Despite the ban, Trump attempted to circumvent it and even filed a lawsuit against Twitter, which was ultimately dismissed by a federal judge. Following his removal from Twitter and other social media platforms, Trump created his own platform called Truth Social. Despite his reinstatement on Twitter, Trump initially expressed no interest in returning to the platform. However, the opportunity to reach a large audience with his mug shot, especially with an upcoming contentious Republican primary, proved too enticing for him to resist.