Skip to main content

University of Michigan School of Information

Menu

Media Center

UMSI welcomes media inquiries

Lampe: Trump’s campaign is leaning into disinformation

Quoted by Forbed. Professor Cliff Lampe. Not the Reich stuff? Trump campaign pulled controversial video.

Tuesday, 05/28/2024

Last week, former president Donald Trump posted a video on Truth Social that included a reference to a "unified Reich"—a term associated with Nazi Germany. 

The video was later deleted, but the message had already spread and created controversy. 

University of Michigan School of Information professor Cliff Lampe, an expert on social media, disinformation and the role of online communities, says posting this kind of content and later deleting it can be a form of disinformation.  

"The pattern of posting a video and then deleting it can have several motivations. Sometimes, the message wasn't thoroughly vetted and has to be retracted," Lampe says. "But sometimes it is a form of disinformation where you post a message to activate the radical part of your base, and then delete it to appease the more centrist members of your constituency."

RELATED

Read “Not The Reich Stuff? Trump Campaign Pulled Controversial Video” on Forbes.