On Friday morning, President Trump shared a seemingly innocuous article on Twitter. The piece said that his sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau, had publicly voiced her support for her brother amid his baseless claims that he won the 2020 election.
“Thank you Elizabeth,” Mr. Trump wrote to his sister, who has long avoided the spotlight. “LOVE!”
There was just one problem: Ms. Trump Grau had not said what the article claimed. In fact, the article Mr. Trump shared was based on a fake Twitter account that posed as his sister.
That article, on the website of a conservative talk-radio host named Wayne Dupree, quoted a post from a Twitter account named “Betty Trump” that used a photo of Ms. Trump Grau as its profile picture.
“This election inspired me to break my silence and speak out on behalf of my family,” the account said in a post on Wednesday. “My brother Don won this election and will fight this to the very end. We’ve always been a family of fighters.”
The article on Mr. Dupree’s site called the comments “so powerful” and said they showed how “our president really does have such an amazing family.”
Had the article’s author looked more closely, though, she would have noticed some suspicious details about the account. It was a day old. The photos it used of Ms. Trump Grau were taken from Getty Images and past news articles about her. And since that first post, the account had tweeted increasingly bizarre messages, sharply criticizing Democrats, journalists and Republicans who had questioned the false claim that Mr. Trump was re-elected.
“If someone pours gravy down Chris Wallace’s pants at Thanksgiving dinner, I promise, I will take care of the legal fees!” the account said, referring to the Fox News anchor. Another post said, “The perfect Trump drink on a rough day,” with a photo of a can of Natty Daddy, a cheap malt beer.
The bizarre episode illustrates how easily misinformation spreads online, often with the help of the president himself. Right-wing websites that seek to support the president’s baseless claims, or simply attract clicks so they can sell more ads, often eschew the traditional principles of journalism, such as simple fact-checking. And the social media companies aid the cycle by making it simple to share misinformation, including allowing the use of fake accounts, and by training their algorithms to promote material that attracts more attention, as sensational and divisive posts often do.
Ms. Trump Grau did not respond to messages left at a phone number and email listed for her in public records.
Vice News reported on Friday that a person who identified herself as Ms. Trump Grau had said she was trying to get the account deleted. “I have no statement,” the person was quoted as telling Vice. “I’m just annoyed about this whole thing.”
President Trump’s tweet about his sister brought the fake account a sudden rush of attention on Friday morning. Shortly after, Mr. Dupree’s website updated the piece with a disclaimer that said the account might be an impostor.
“While this has not been officially ‘fact-checked’ by social media executives and professionals, we’re hearing from many others that this is not actually the account of Ms. Elizabeth Trump,” the site said. “We’ll leave it up with this update, and wait for official fact-checkers to weigh in.”
Hours later, the account came clean. “I would’ve clarified sooner that I was a parody but I certainly didn’t anticipate President Trump himself taking notice of the account,” the person running the account posted on Twitter. “Hope y’all will forgive me — feel bad for creating any confusion. LOVE!”
The president’s post remained up hours later.
Mr. Dupree said in an email that the article’s author had simply rewritten a post she had found on another conservative website. “When I found out, I was confused and I immediately went to the author and they went back to the website they claimed it was from but they didn’t see it so we came up with the statement,” he said. “I don’t want people, readers to think we are fake news.”
The article remained on his website on Friday afternoon.
By that time, Twitter had deleted the account that posed as Ms. Trump Grau. A Twitter spokesman said the account was “permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules on platform manipulation and spam.”
Just before the account was deleted, @TheBettyTrump posted another message: “President Trump looks tired … he’s working so hard.”
Davey Alba contributed reporting.
