White House summit on social media gave a boost to key Trump supporters. They used it to attack Mueller.

After right-wing influencers and online provocateurs flocked to the White House for a summit on how they’d been suppressed across social media, a remarkable thing happened: Their social media audiences soared. 15 of the event’s invitees have seen their Twitter audiences grow by a combined 197,000 followers — a 75 percent jump over the number of followers they’d gained in the same time span before the event. On July 24, they put that new reach to good use, mobilizing on social media against the testimony of former special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, whom they derided as a “senile,” “doddering” and compromised old man who had led a “leftist” “hit-job.” 

The growing audiences show how allegations of censorship have become an established route to conservative social media celebrity, as Trump-backed firebrands rally support for themselves and unify their audiences against a faceless tech-industry oppression.