Did Trump win the presidency on social media?

Not only did everyone with an opinion hammer that view on social media in the last week, but Trump himself credited the power of  the medium as being a key component of his ascendency to President.

He said this week on 60 Minutes “I really believe that-- the fact that I have such power in terms of numbers with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, et cetera, I think it helped me win all of these races where they’re spending much more money than I spent. And I won. I think that social media has more power than the money they spent, and I think maybe to a certain extent, I proved that.”

He also credited social media as giving him an opportunity to correct bad reports about him in the conventional press and to “fight back” when journalists were giving him a hard time.

There is absolutely no doubt that this is going to be studied from every angle as the world tries to make sense of those elections.

However what we cannot ignore is that social media is a medium is literally changing the power dynamics of politics on a global scale.

Verlie Oosthuizen

Shepstone & Wylie Social Media Law Department