Trump and Bana
© Reuters/Arutz Sheva
US President Donald Trump and an eight-year-old refugee from Syria, Bana Alabed, have been named by Time magazine among the most influential people online.

With his legendary tweets, from #corrupthillary to the cryptic-slash-nonsensical "covfefe," the 45th US president made it to the "unranked" list along with 24 other cyber celebrities with powerful presence on social media and ability to make headlines.

Trump has been famously using Twitter to push his policies and to rail against his enemies and critics.


Comment: According to Time:
The president once claimed that people consider him "the Hemingway of Twitter." But he may be more like the platform's O. Henry: undone with an ironic twist. The itchy Twitter finger that propelled him to the White House now appears to be hurting his presidency. An unsubstantiated accusation that he was wiretapped ended up irritating British intelligence. A reference to possible tapes of his conversations with fired FBI Director James Comey raised eyebrows. (Trump later said he didn't record conversations with Comey.) Old tweets have been scrutinized by skeptical judges and recirculated online when Trump has contradicted a past position. But in spite of — or perhaps because of — the seemingly endless drama, Trump is now the most-followed world leader on Twitter, giving him a tool that's highly effective at getting his message out on his own terms. —Ryan Teague Beckwith




Also making the list is Bana Alabed, a now 8-year-old girl from Syria, whose pinned tweet from December 2016 said she was "talking to the world live" from East Aleppo, then held by both opposition groups and terrorists. "This is my last moment to either live or die," the post claimed. Hundreds more followed.

While the Twitter-verified account, said to be managed by the girl's mother, Fatemah, has generated some 365,000 followers, its authenticity, as well as the motives behind it, have been called into question. Doubts have been raised as to Bana's ability to timely post hashtags and tweet in an area that doesn't always have electricity or internet.

According to Time, Bana was safely evacuated from Aleppo, and is now living with her family in Turkey as refugees. From there, she has criticized her fellow influential twitterati member, Donald Trump, questioning his US travel ban on people from several Muslim-majority countries.



Comment: According to Time:
When a 7-year-old girl tweets that she's scared of dying in a bomb strike, the world takes notice. So it was with Alabed, whose everyday dispatches from rebel-held East Aleppo ("bombs falling now like rain," "my brothers are very scared and I don't want that") raised awareness about the horrors of Syria's Civil War at a time when few journalists could even access the region. Although Syrian President Bashar al-Assad initially dismissed the account — which is run by Bana's mom, Fatemah — as anti-government "propaganda," it nonetheless drew widespread coverage, turning Alabed into a posterchild for Syria's thousands of struggling children. Her story has a happier ending than most: In December 2016, she and her family were evacuated to Turkey, where they're now living as refugees. She recently signed a book deal with Simon & Schuster. —Tara John

Others on Time's list are Harry Potter author JK Rowling, Russian opposition figure Aleksey Navalny, as well as pop singer Rihanna and the ever-present Kim Kardashian.