Emoji Wars! The Reason Twitter Was Not At Trump’s Tech Meeting

When this meeting was announced, it was odd to see Twitter wasn’t going to be there. After all, Donald Trump utilized Twitter as a platform like no other candidate. He still does. It’s his preferred method of communication. So why wasn’t Twitter there today?

Emojis. 

No, really:

Twitter was told it was “bounced” from Wednesday’s meeting between tech executives and President-elect Donald Trump in retribution for refusing during the campaign to allow an emoji version of the hashtag #CrookedHillary, according to a source close to the situation.

The incident at issue was detailed in a Medium post last month by Gary Coby, director of digital advertising and fundraising for the Trump campaign. According to Coby, Dorsey personally intervened to block the Trump operation from deploying — as part of a $5 million deal between the social media company and the campaign — an emoji showing, in various renderings, small bags of money being given away or stolen. That emoji would have been offered to users as a replacement for the hashtag #CrookedHillary, a preferred Trump insult for his Democratic opponent.

“We told them it was BS and what they were doing with a public platform was incredibly reckless and dangerous,” wrote Coby of the back-and-forth between the Trump operation and Twitter.

According to the source, RNC spokesman Sean Spicer, who is an adviser to the Trump transition, made the call to refuse an invitation to Dorsey or other Twitter executives to the meeting, which was organized by Silicon Valley investor and Facebook board member Peter Thiel, who has been an adviser to Trump.

It’s funny, but at the same time, this kind of pettiness would make anybody nervous. If Twitter gets shut out of a tech meeting because they didn’t make an emoji to go along with a hashtag, what does this mean for other business leaders Trump believes slighted him at some point?

I can’t say I blame Trump for being upset over Dorsey stepping in the way he did, but if Trump wanted to get a little revenge, it likely would have been better to invite Dorsey to the meeting and then dress him down a bit in front of the others.

Hillary lost. There’s no need to continue to lock Twitter out of these events once Trump is President.

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