The FBI’s Mar-a-Lago search is fueling a traffic 'surge' on Trump’s social media platform: report

Social media platforms, from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram, have been inundated with posts on the FBI’s Monday, August 8 search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort — and Trump’s critics have been slamming him over reports of classified government documents being stored there, reportedly in violation of federal law. The search has been a prominent topic of discussion on right-wing social media platforms as well, including Trump’s Truth Social — which, according to Axios reporters Sara Fischer and Stef W. Kight, is experiencing a “surge” in traffic.

Fischer and Kight, in an article published on August 23, report, “The FBI’s execution of a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago has driven outsized conservative social media attention, triggering the wide sharing of news stories and driving tens of thousands of new users to former President Trump’s Truth Social app. Why it matters: Trump faces serious potential legal implications after the FBI's seizure of 11 sets of classified documents from Mar-a-Lago. But in the near term, it’s fueling Republican echo chambers’ defense of him and attacks on the FBI.”

The journalists report that according to “data shared with Axios” by the mobile apps analytics firm Apptopia, “downloads of Trump's Truth Social spiked to nearly 88,000 in the week following the raid — more than any other week, measured Monday-Sunday, since the first two weeks of the app's launch in early May.”

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Jon Lewis, a researcher who studies extremism at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., warns that posts threatening or promoting violence have not been uncommon on right-wing platforms since the Mar-a-Lago search.

Lewis told Axios, “It's not people saying, ‘Let's have a reasonable discussion about this’ or ‘let's see what happens;’ it's, 'Let's kill FBI agents.’”

Fischer and Kight note that “outrage often leads to higher engagement online.”

George Washington University professor Ethan Porter, who specializes in media and public affairs, told Axios, “When people seek out information about the raid, most likely they're only looking to corroborate what they already believe, one way or the other.”

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