Donald Trump claims Zuckerberg told him he was 'No 1' on Facebook

United States President Donald Trump on January 6 boasted that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg told him he was Number One on the social media platform. In a recent interview with international radio station Trump mentioned that during a dinner with Zuckerberg, he congratulated him in front of a large group of people on being number one on Facebook. However, the US President did not specify when the dinner happened. 

According to international media reports, the last such dinner with Zuckerberg took place in October at the White House after which no additional meetings between the two had taken place. The official Facebook page of Trump has approximately 25 million likes and 26 million followers, however, many other high-profile people on the platform surpass the number. It is still unclear what he meant by saying 'number one' on Facebook. In the interview, Trump also said that without the platform he had been lost and he wouldn't be able to get the truth out. 

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Accounts spreading pro-Trump messages blocked

In recent times, Facebook has come under criticism for enabling misinformation and fake news in the build-up to the 2020 presidential election. Last month, the social media platform also took down several fake accounts that were spreading pro-Trump messages. According to Facebook's head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher, the accounts posted memes and content related to US politics. The topics the group shared about included the impeachment, conservative ideology, political candidates, elections, trade, family values and freedom of religion.

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While speaking to an international media outlet, the global social media platform also commented that it had noticed pages that were engaging in foreign and government interference. The company reportedly blocked 610 accounts, 89 pages, 156 groups and 72 Instagram accounts that originated in Vietnam as they used artificial intelligence to generate fake profile photos. Another major group of fake accounts originated from Georgia. These accounts were traced to an advertising agency called Panda. 39 pages and over 300 pages were removed from Facebook in relation to this. 

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