Election season is winding down, and just about everyone has been buzzing about the respective presidential campaigns for months. In many ways, considering who to elect as president is similar to the process of vetting candidates for any job. Several weeks ago, CNET reached out to Social Intelligence. They asked us to complete an abbreviated version of our social media background checks on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Here is what our analyst team found:
Donald Trump
Between the two candidates, Trump is the only one with negative content on his social media accounts. He not only tweeted derogatory things about women, but he also attacked China and Mexico. Trump was also flagged under our filter for ‘Potentially Violent Behavior.’ As pictured below, Trump stated, “I could shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose any voters.”
Some of Trump’s other comments were flagged under our ‘Potentially Unlawful Activity’ filter. Trump said that he hoped Russian intelligence had successfully hacked into Clinton’s email server. He also wished Russia would make that information publicly available.
Hillary Clinton
Although Clinton’s social media accounts came up clean, our team still found negative content regarding the Democratic candidate. However, some of it was outside of our usual seven-year review period. In the ’90s, Hillary and Bill Clinton were accused of improperly deducting money on their personal tax returns.
In 2000, Clinton was accused of calling someone a “Jew bastard,” though she denied this. Like Trump, we also found material for Clinton under our ‘Potentially Unlawful Activity’ filter. We flagged the FBI probe regarding the private email server that she used while acting as secretary of state.
The full images of our social media hiring reports and the write-up by CNET can be found here.
(Note: these reports were completed prior to the leaked ‘Access Hollywood’ tape and the sexual assault allegations against Trump. We also completed these reports before the recent WikiLeaks emails regarding Clinton).
Contributing Author: Caitlin Rogers