How many times has Donald Trump been accused of spreading misinformation on social media?

1. The headline numbers: tens of thousands versus hundreds — why they differ

The largest aggregate cited comes from long‑running fact‑checking efforts that tracked statements across speeches, interviews and online posts; The Washington Post’s compilation counted 30,573 false or misleading claims over four years, which reporters and databases treat as a running total rather than platform‑specific counts ^[1]. By contrast, platform‑focused research and watchdog tallies produce much smaller figures because they limit scope: a CREW investigation counted hundreds of posts about a single topic on one platform, and a NYU study examined specific political tweets in a limited post‑election window ^[2]. These differences highlight that “how you count” — statement vs. post, time period, and platform — determines the headline number and that no single source provides a universal total ^{[2] [1]}.

2. Platform actions and discrete milestones that shaped the record

Social platforms themselves created discrete, widely noted instances that feed into claims about misinformation. Twitter’s decision to attach fact‑checking labels to a Trump tweet in May 2020 marked a public turning point: platform enforcement entered the public record when Twitter flagged a specific tweet as disputed, which fact‑checkers and news outlets documented as the platform’s first such action regarding his posts ^[3]. Separately, Meta’s policy shifts and ending of third‑party fact‑checking drew attention to how platform policy changes alter the volume of labeled content; researchers noted that platform choices shape what gets documented and counted ^{[5] [6]}. These milestones show that accusations are both numerous and mediated by corporate moderation decisions ^{[3] [5]}.

3. Collections and databases: curated compilations versus exhaustive lists

Fact‑checking sites and news outlets maintain curated collections that document specific misleading claims. Snopes assembled a "Trump Truth Social Collection" containing dozens of fact‑checks of individual posts, illustrating ongoing, case‑by‑case debunking rather than an overall tally ^[4]. Investigative reports cite many specific examples — AI‑generated videos, unsubstantiated claims about retailers, and rapid posting patterns — that fuel media narratives about volume and intent ^[7]. These curated databases are invaluable for context on what types of misinformation recur, but they intentionally avoid presenting a single cumulative number because the dataset boundaries differ across projects ^{[4] [7]}.

4. Academic and watchdog studies: slicing the data for different stories

Academic studies and watchdog groups produce targeted counts that illuminate particular behaviors but are not directly comparable. One NYU study and CREW investigation highlighted hundreds to low‑thousands of election‑related posts in narrow timeframes, including cases that attracted platform warnings or removals ^[2]. These focused studies show high concentration of disputed content around elections and specific policy claims, and they underscore how scholarly methods—sampling periods, criteria for “misinformation,” and whether warnings count as formal accusations—yield different totals than journalistic tallies ^{[2] [5]}. In short, methodology shapes the story: election‑adjacent windows show intense activity, while comprehensive multi‑year tracking yields much larger counts ^{[1] [2]}.

5. The bottom line: a range, not a single figure — and why that matters

There is no single authoritative count that answers “how many times” in absolute terms; credible sources present a range from isolated platform fact‑checks to tens of thousands of false or misleading claims depending on scope. Policymakers and the public must therefore treat any single number as partial: platform enforcement records (e.g., the first Twitter flag) document specific interventions, curated fact‑check collections document recurring claims, and comprehensive trackers quantify sustained falsehoods across venues ^{[3] [4] [1]}. The most useful understanding is an informed range: numerous platform‑level accusations and interventions, hundreds-to-thousands in targeted windows, and tens of thousands when counting all false statements across four years ^{[1] [2] [3]}.