The fact Donald Trump owns a social media network makes this election in America a lot more precarious.
It means Trump effectively has control over a network that counts as a source of and potential platform for journalism.
It makes it different because potentially his users are not subject to the same censorship as they are on X, for example, where his supporters get cancelled.
The fact of cancellation as it is doesn’t worry some in the liberal press but it’s an anomaly elsewhere.
The fact is most of the world’s connected population use social media. This is according to Statista, who say over 5 billion people use social media across the world.
This figure is just shy of the nearly 5.5 billion who use the Internet.
It’s a remarkable figure and proportion of total usage, and speaks of the use and value of social media as seen across the world.
Trump is on the cutting edge of seeing not just the dollar value but the social import of a social media network.
Its actual influence over an election however is a different matter.