President Trump has launched an account on the live game-streaming service Twitch.
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Donald Trump is spreading his social media wings with the launch of a channel on Twitch. Trump is at least the third candidate for president to create a presence on the video game streaming service.
Trump’s account, which has a verification check mark, counts about 7,000 followers but hasn’t posted any content as of this writing, but the move suggests the president will use the platform to livestream videos to his supporters as part of his 2020 re-election bid. Other candidates to launch Twitch accounts include Democrats Bernie Sanders and Andrew Yang.
Although not a fan of social media, Trump is one of the industry’s most prolific users, using his Twitter account to announce policy changes and criticize his opponents. His 65.5 million followers on Twitter put him just out of the top 10 most-followed Twitter accounts. He also has nearly 15 million followers on Instagram, although he posts on that account far less frequently than he does on Twitter.
His choice to expand his social media presence by going to Twitch, which 15 million users visit daily to watch others play video games, is a bit of double irony for the president. Trump is well known for accusing social media of harboring liberal bias and suppression of conservative voices, but he’s also blamed video games for contributing to the “glorification of violence in our society.”
And then there’s Amazon, which paid about $970 million for Twitch in 2014. Trump has made the internet retail giant one of his favorite targets, with repeated accusations that the company is taking advantage of its delivery partnership with the US Postal Service.
Its CEO, Jeff Bezos, has also been a frequent target of Trump’s attacks, with the president widely seen as targeting the company because Bezos owns The Washington Post, which has reported critically on the president.
The White House didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.