Donald Trump is no stranger to Twitter as the rest of the world has clearly seen. Even if you are not a Twitter user, images of Trump's tweets are often flashed on the news or shared on other social media platforms. Even in a country such as China, where twitter has been blocked for years, Trump's manner of tweeting is very much known.
Fake tweets made to look like they came from @realdonaldtrump became an instant internet sensation in China as a website allows users to generate images of fake tweets. These tweets include the avatar/dp of Trump and even have a real time stamp. This allows users to create a real looking image of a tweet with practically anything they want to be written on it. Making it seem like the President of the United States is actually tweeting about whatever pops into their heads.
Some of the tweets, as per AP News, read "@realdonalrd trump would like to wish you a Happy Chinese New Year", "@realdonaldtrump wants to buy a jianbing and wants Mexico to pay for it," and "@realdonaldtrump thinks Shanghai Jiaotong University is better than its crosstown rival." In fact, in just four days, millions of fake tweets, both in English and Chinese, have already made their way to the internet from Jike, a Shanghai-based startup with a website that can create images of tweets.
The co-founder of Jike, Lin Hang, said that Trump is an "extremely iconic image" for the Chinese people, even with the tech-savvy young. This is because of his language style and tone, which can easily be recognized and imitated with people's everyday rhetoric, making for a very amusing tweet. Lin Hang said that using Trump's tone "provokes a certain reaction, a certain resonance," as per CBS News. That is the reason why so many fake tweets are circulating China.
