Presidential campaigning has moved beyond the traditional stump speeches and gladhanding in recent years; in its place is dominion over the digital world. As such, it is little surprise that legacy media outlets are attempting to increase their online presence while simultaneously pushing for the censorship of what these media gatekeepers deem “disinformation.” With one of the biggest 2024 contenders having just been released from Twitter and Facebook jail, the other heavy hitter should – in theory – have a staggering online advantage. And yet, President Joe Biden appears to be losing in the social media arena.

A Firehose of Falsehood?

In 2016, the Rand Corporation released a study detailing how the Kremlin had embraced the online world in its efforts to spread a pro-Russian message. It read in part:

“We characterize the contemporary Russian model for propaganda as ‘the firehose of falsehood’ because of two of its distinctive features: high numbers of channels and messages and a shameless willingness to disseminate partial truths or outright fictions. In the words of one observer, ‘[N]ew Russian propaganda entertains, confuses and overwhelms the audience.’”

Similar descriptions could easily be applied to the full-court media/social media press currently pushing for Biden 2024.

In fact, Biden makes his presence felt across three different Twitter accounts: Joe Biden (37 million followers), President Biden (30 million), and the official White House account (8 million). It is likely that quite a few of these 75 million are repeat users (as is often the case, individuals follow more than one account). However, despite appearing on three separate Twitter pages, the content is entirely interchangeable. For example, each Twitter handle espoused the same criticism of the GOP’s proposed spending bill or glowingly covered Biden’s visit to Howard University.

“A high number of channels” indeed, as the Rand Corporation noted, each working in conjunction with one another.

Former President Donald Trump – by comparison – who has not tweeted for almost two and a half years, had a following of over 80 million.

Bad News for Biden

It is not, however, the quantity of content that is proving troublesome for the president, but rather the quality and the reception. Liberty Nation compiled the Twitter numbers of prominent candidates to discover who has the most reach and interaction.

We collected data on the last five tweets from each of the following politicos: President Joe Biden, former President Donald Trump, Gov. Ron DeSantis (FL), and Democrat 2024 hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The number of “comments,” “retweets,” and “likes” were averaged over the five tweets and across the channels each man controls (for example, Biden has the three aforementioned accounts and DeSantis has both his personal and governor’s account). What the analysis revealed should be a concern for Camp Biden.

Trump, in all categories, bested the rest by a factor of at least ten times. However, because he is no longer engaged in the platform, his posts have had time to accrue further interactions, and as such, is not really a like-for-like comparison. So let’s next consider DeSantis, who is a likely 2024 contender against the current president.

The two leaders have almost the same numbers in terms of likes, comments, and retweets; Biden has slightly more retweets, with the Florida governor gaining the edge in the other two categories When comparing the two Democrats (Biden and Kennedy), we found that although retweets and likes were just about even, Biden garnered a significant edge (2,337 v. 475) when it comes to comments.

But are waves of comments actually something to be celebrated? That depends.

Ratio City

A common term in internet parlance is “ratioed.” It means that the comments reacting to the original post are less than supportive of the idea or testament proposed. In other words: Most are not buying the malarkey. Biden’s Twitter timeline is ratio city.

A perusal of the latest tweets on his “Joe Biden” account shows a 40 to 1 ratio of negative sentiments compared to positive ones. A mixture of snipes, snark, and mocking memes pervade his comment threads interspersed with the rare “way to go!” His official “POTUS” account suffers the same lack of enthusiasm. One might expect the White House account to be a less divisive place, and yet the ratio rises to a staggering 70 to 1 negative vs. positive responses.*

DeSantis is the fortunate recipient of a 9 to 1 favorability in the replies to his tweets, and Kennedy tops the list with a huge 12 to 1 positive response.

And the Real World?

The important question is whether what happens in the digital world is reflected across America. Biden is currently more than ten points underwater, and just 30% of the public believes the country is presently on the right track. The rejection in both the real and digital world is consistent. And yet this doesn’t mean that Biden’s 2024 hopes are necessarily dashed.

Commenting and sharing posts online is a low-risk, low-effort pastime. Voters may be comfortable venting their disappointment in a broad forum with people they don’t know and will never meet, but when it comes to casting that ballot, tribalism may well trump Twitter tantrums. Still, it is not a good sign for Team Biden.

*The ratio was measured by choosing at random one of the five latest tweets from the account. Replies that were either sponsored ads, crypto ads, or irrelevant to the original post were disregarded.