At the beginning of October 2024, news went viral on RuNet that the former US President responded to a subscriber with an indecent name who had liked the politician’s profile. We have verified the accuracy of this story.
Similar messages appeared on RuNet on October 3. For example, Telegram channel "Rhymes and punches"(120,000 views at the time of writing this analysis) wrote: "Donald Trump thanked his subscriber with the nickname... Zalupa and promised to keep him updated on news about the elections." The authors of the post called the politician a legend. Channel "Ax+"(943,000 views) clarified that social network user X (formerly Twitter) received this honor for liking the profile of the ex-President of the United States. Ksenia Sobchak in the channel "Bloody lady”(137,000 views) summed up: “It seems obscene, but you can’t erase the words from the tweet. “Trump thanked Zalupa” is a medical fact. We live with it."
According to the TGStat service, in less than five hours, about 170 similar posts appeared on Telegram, which in total received almost 2.2 million views. Channels wrote about Trump’s praise “Pozdnyakov 3.0"(232,000 views), "Dvach"(179,000), "KB"(150,000), "Uncle Slava"(115,000), "Bloodseeker 2.0"(96,000), "Backdoor"(73,000), as well as publics in "VKontakte", where the community entry "Rhymes and punches” received 329,000 views. The media also wrote about this, including Ukrainian publications “TSN" And "Focus"
"Verified" studied account Trump on social network X was not found in the politician’s replays of the viral message. However, using an internal search on the platform, we were still able to find the tweet from the viral screenshot. He was published October 3, 2024 at 00:13 Moscow time; At the time of writing this analysis, the post had received 265,000 views. Translated into Russian it sounds like this:
@zalupa_, thank you for liking my post! I'll send you important news about North Carolina elections. Make sure you're ready to vote for Donald Trump on November 5th. Reply #stop to opt out.
According to the profile description, the user with the username @zalupa_ created an account on social network X in May 2022. It also states that he is from Ukraine. In response to a tweet of gratitude from Trump's account, a user wrote in English: "You're welcome."
But in fact, Trump personally did not praise @zalupa_ for liking his posts. On October 2, a tweet appeared on the politician’s account (2.1 million views), in which it was said: “North Carolina: Get ready to vote! Like this post to receive important reminders about the North Carolina election. Whether you vote early or in person on Election Day, be prepared and be sure to vote!” The tweet ended up receiving more than 131,000 likes.
Judging by the huge quantity identical tweets on Trump’s profile, the majority of users who liked this post automatically received a replay with gratitude and a promise to inform them about news about the elections in North Carolina. The fact that these are tweets from a bot is indicated by the phrase “Reply #stop to unsubscribe.” However, not all users understood this, so under some similar posts posted on behalf of the politician, appeared corresponding clarification from Community Notes.
The ex-president’s opponents also used such tweets with gratitude from Trump’s account. For example, unknown user created page with the username @TrumpIsTheFelon (“Trump is a criminal”) and liked the tweet mentioned above, to which received response from the politician’s profile: “@TrumpIsTheFelon, thank you for liking my post!” “Verified” as part of the experiment also liked Trump’s post and even received similar answer, but for some reason without gratitude.
Thus, Trump's official X account actually posted a thank you message addressed to a user with the username @zalupa_. However, this was only an automatic response that was received by thousands of users who liked a specific tweet on the politician’s profile.
Cover photo: @rhymestg
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