Obama pips Trump in Twitter battle of 2017

San Francisco, Dec. 6: US President Donald Trump is perhaps the world’s most famous Twitter user, but the most popular post of 2017 was from... Barack Obama.

Three tweets by the former US leader made it onto Twitter’s Top 10 list of retweeted messages for this year but there were none from Trump despite his prolific use of the platform.

Mr Trump was, however, the elected leader most tweeted about, Twitter said. A tweet racking up the most “likes,” about 4.6 million as of Tuesday, came from Obama’s personal Twitter account on the day of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The tweet showed photo of a racially diverse group of children looking out a window at Obama as he smiled back, and bore a quote from Nelson Mandela.

The same Twitter post was the second most retweeted of the year, behind a tweet from a teenager trying to win a year’s supply of chicken nuggets from chain Wendy’s.

Half of the top 10 tweets reveal a year marked by tragedy and sorrow, from a Houston submerged in water, to a concert in Manchester, England, where a suicide bomber killed 22 people, including children.

Others, including the most shared tweet of the year, expose social media’s other- side- of- the- lookingglass panorama.

It came from fast food lover Carter Wilkerson , who, on a quest for a year’s worth of free chicken nuggets, pleaded with the world to retweet: “HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS.” He fell short of the 18- million retweet bar set by Wendy’s, the purveyor of Wikerson’s obsession, but the fast- food chain gave Wilkerson his nuggets anyway for the effort.

President Barack Obama , with 1.7 million retweets in August, was second, posting, “No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin or his background or his religion...” It is a quote from Nelson Mandela.

Obama took three of top 10 spots on the list.

The blasting by Cleveland Cavaliers star Lebron James of President Donald Trump rocketed around the world after he “rescinded” Stephen Curry’s invitation to the White House to celebrate the Golden State Warrior’s NBA championship.