Obama breaks record again
Former President Barack Obama's tweet in response to the violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend is already one of the platform's most-liked posts.Obama tweeted Saturday night: "No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." The quote comes from Nelson Mandela's autobiography "Long Walk to Freedom."Obama posted the tweet alongside a picture of himself smiling at a group of children of different races.With more than 2.8 million likes already, it’s the most “liked” tweet in Twitter history. A spokesperson for Twitter said the tweet broke the record just after 7 p.m. on Tuesday.The tweet, Obama's first in weeks, came in the context of deadly white supremacist violence in the town of Charlottesville, Virginia.The former US president followed the tweet with more from Mandela’s autobiographical Long Walk to Freedom:“People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love.“For love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.”Each has had more than a million likes, and hundreds of thousands of retweets.Far-right protesters opposing the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E Lee from Emancipation Park rallied in Charlottesville on Saturday. Many waved burning torches and wore Nazi or other white supremacist regalia.They were met with counter-protests from antifascist campaigners, who were targeted by a man who drove a car into a group, killing civil rights activist Heather Heyerand injuring several more.Obama hasn’t tweeted that often since leaving office in January, though he has used the platform to comment on major news stories, including the Manchester attack.His response to the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville is in stark contrast to that of President Donald Trump, who remained silent on Twitter for hours as the violence escalated.Trump has also faced widespread criticism for insisting that “both sides” — white supremacists and those protesting hate groups — are to blame for the clashes.
"No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion..." pic.twitter.com/InZ58zkoAm
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) August 13, 2017