Trump’s State of the Union Response: Social Media Glitches and Mocking Filters

Former President Donald J. Trump promised Americans a “play-by-play” of President Biden’s State of the Union address on Thursday night.

That, Mr. Trump declared before the event began, would happen on “Truth Social, the real voice of America,” praising the social media platform in which he has a financial stake that would be his bully pulpit for the night.

But shortly after, that voice sputtered.

Truth Social began experiencing outages toward the beginning of Mr. Biden’s remarks, with more than 3,000 reported outages on the site by 9:30 p.m., according to Down Detector, a website that tracks user reports of web disruptions. The outages paused the barrage of derogatory posts that made up Mr. Trump’s response to Mr. Biden’s remarks, which included an unusual video that deployed Snapchat filters to mocking effect.

Mr. Biden took numerous shots at Mr. Trump, the expected Republican nominee, on Thursday night, referring to him only as his “predecessor” in an effort to highlight the stakes of the election and draw a contrast for viewers between his vision for the country and the one depicted by his all-but-certain opponent.

Mr. Biden, referencing the “American story,” spoke about how his “lifetime has taught me to embrace freedom and democracy.” Then, alluding to Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden said, “Now some other people my age see a different story — the American story of resentment, revenge and retribution. That’s not me.” (Mr. Trump, whose remarks often depict a dark future for America, recently referred to the United States as a “third-world country.”)

After the event ended, Mr. Trump’s accounts on Truth Social and Instagram featured a video in which Snapchat-like filters toggled over what appeared to be Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris at the 2023 State of the Union.

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