--- title: Donald Trump Tweets: Programmer Analyzes Twitter Account description: A data analyst thinks he's figured out how to tell which tweets Donald Trump wrote himself and which were done by his campaign staff. canonical: https://time.com/4448447/donald-trump-tweets-data-analysis/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-08-11T18:40:47.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-19T07:45:44.671Z article:section: Politics og:title: This Programmer Thinks He Can Tell Which Tweets Trump Wrote og:description: "I expected to see a difference, but it was much more dramatic than I expected." og:url: https://time.com/4448447/donald-trump-tweets-data-analysis/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd272178f958da475/6988a1fcbc6cfc08bf3de368/donald-trump-twitter-android-iphone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2560 og:image:height: 1440 og:image:alt: Donald Trump demonstrates how he Tweets using his Samsung phone in his office in the Trump Tower in New York. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Programmer Thinks He Can Tell Which Tweets Trump Wrote twitter:description: "I expected to see a difference, but it was much more dramatic than I expected." twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd272178f958da475/6988a1fcbc6cfc08bf3de368/donald-trump-twitter-android-iphone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Programmer Thinks He Can Tell Which Tweets Donald Trump Wrote Himself > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Aug 11, 2016 6:40 PM UTC  Donald Trump demonstrates how he Tweets using his Samsung phone in his office in the Trump Tower in New York City on Sept. 29, 2015. Donald Trump demonstrates how he Tweets using his Samsung phone in his office in the Trump Tower in New York City on Sept. 29, 2015. Josh Haner—The New York Times/Redux by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Aug 11, 2016 6:40 PM UTC A data analyst thinks he’s figured out how to tell which tweets Donald Trump wrote himself and which were done by his campaign staff. David Robinson, who works for the programming site Stack Overflow, says he was curious about the differences between the more incendiary tweets, such as those calling his Democratic rival [“Crooked Hillary,”](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/762104411707568128) and the more polished ones, such as [a recent one](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/761754898602061824) thanking Green Bay, Wis., so he looked into the data. “For me it’s more about finding a really interesting story, a case where people suspect something, but don’t have the data to back it up,” Robinson told TIME. “For me it was much more about putting some quantitative details to this story that has been going around than it was about proving something about Trump’s campaign.” **Read More:** [_Donald Trump’s Tweets Are Getting More Polished_](http://time.com/4387661/donald-trump-twitter-tweets-campaign/) Robinson [used data to analyze about 1,400 of Trump’s tweets](http://varianceexplained.org/r/trump-tweets/) going back to January, and he found a clear distinction between tweets sent on an Android device and those sent from an iPhone. The more inflammatory tweets with strong negative language which did not use photos or hashtags were sent on Android; the more traditional tweets with neutral language, photos and hashtags were sent on an iPhone. Trump is [known for using an Android-based Samsung Galaxy](http://www.theverge.com/2015/10/5/9453935/donald-trump-twitter-strategy) smartphone. “I expected to see a difference, but it was much more dramatic than I expected,” Robinson said. Still, Robinson warned that the data isn’t the final word. His sentiment analysis of the words used in tweets, for example, doesn’t take into account how many different people have access to the Twitter account. Robinson, who said he was surprised the analysis got a lot of attention, said it took him about 12 hours to put together, including the time spent writing the post. He said he hopes people learn something about programming from it. Robinson also told TIME he does not plan on voting for Trump. “None of this is proof as much as statistical evidence and hypotheses,” Robinson said. _Pratheek Rebala contributed to this report_ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4448447/donald-trump-tweets-data-analysis/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4448447/donald-trump-tweets-data-analysis/"},"headline":"This Programmer Thinks He Can Tell Which Tweets Donald Trump Wrote Himself","datePublished":"2016-08-11T18:40:47.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-19T07:45:44.671Z","description":"'I expected to see a difference, but it was much more dramatic than I expected'","url":"https://time.com/4448447/donald-trump-tweets-data-analysis/","keywords":["Donald Trump","Social Media","2016 Election","twitter"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd272178f958da475/6988a1fcbc6cfc08bf3de368/donald-trump-twitter-android-iphone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltd272178f958da475/6988a1fcbc6cfc08bf3de368/donald-trump-twitter-android-iphone.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Donald Trump demonstrates how he Tweets using his Samsung phone in his office in the Trump Tower in New York.","caption":"Donald Trump demonstrates how he Tweets using his Samsung phone in his office in the Trump Tower in New York City on Sept. 29, 2015.","creditText":"Josh Haner—The New York Times/Redux","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4448447/donald-trump-tweets-data-analysis/","name":"This Programmer Thinks He Can Tell Which Tweets Donald Trump Wrote Himself"}}]}] ```