His father is facing four criminal indictments and his family’s business is deeply mired in a fraud ruling in New York, but what is Eric Trump upset about on social media? On Friday he claimed that Apple is “shadow banning” his wife Lara Trump’s “new song.”

Lara apparently plays the piano and has a passion for singing, recorded and released a cover of Tom Petty’s 1989 hit song “I Won’t Back Down,” earlier this week, according to Mediaite. The song’s cover photo shows her wearing a dress on horseback.

Friday she and hubby took to X to accuse Apple of deliberately working to hide the popularity of her rendition of the song by “shadow banning” it. This is a term commonly used to describe online content that is purposely suppressed by a social media company to prevent that content from receiving engagement.

Lara posted to her more than 1 million followers, “Hey, Apple — where is my song??? Why doesn’t my song appear when you search ‘I Won’t Back Down’???”

Hey, @Apple — where is my song??? Why doesn’t my song appear when you search “I Won’t Back Down”??? pic.twitter.com/CugiZggxOY

— Lara Trump (@LaraLeaTrump) September 29, 2023

Eric Trump added his own thoughts, writing a typo-laden message, “Breaking: Apple appears to be viscously shadow banning Lara Trump’s new song, which immediately upon release, was 31st on the ITunes charts. Lara’s name, when typed in full, is hardly viable and can only be found below ‘Fake News II.’ The song itself is unsearchable.”

Oh darn. I know I’m sad about that, aren’t you? Okay, not really.

https://twitter.com/EricTrump/status/1707775235137634546

I don’t have iTunes (I know, I know, I’m a dinosaur) but it’s pretty simple to find the latest release of a song quickly. All a user needs to do is type in the song’s name for it to show up. Of course, Lara Trump’s not singing an original; it’s a cover of a still-popular song made famous by another artist.

“I Won’t Back Down” was the lead single from Petty’s first solo album (which I loved) Full Moon Fever. It climbed up to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and stayed atop the Mainstream Rock charts for five weeks. That helped the album to reach multi-platinum status.

After Petty’s tragic death in 2017, the song became popular once again when the Florida Gators football in Gainesville, Petty’s hometown in Florida started a new tradition of playing the song between the third and fourth quarters.

And the thing is, Lara Trump’s cover far from the most notable cover of the song. Johnny Cash included the song on his 2000 album American III: Solitary Man. Petty himself contributed vocals and guitar to the track, and Jason Aldean played it during a 2017 episode of Saturday Night Live as a tribute to Petty and the victims of the shooting in Las Vegas. Everclear, the GooGoo Dolls, and Kris Kristofferson have also covered the song.

Apple hasn’t responded publicly to either Lara or Eric Trump’s accusations.

It’s pretty likely that the beloved singer’s estate is not happy with Lara Trump covering the song. In June 2020, the family of the late rocker sent a cease and desist letter to then-President Donald Trump’s campaign due to its use of the song at a Tulsa, Oklahoma, rally.

“Trump was in no way authorized to use this song to further a campaign that leaves too many Americans and common sense behind,” the letter stated. “Both the late Tom Petty and his family firmly stand against racism and discrimination of any kind. Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate. He liked to bring people together.”

“Tom wrote this song for the underdog, for the common man and for EVERYONE,” the letter explained. “We want to make it clear that we believe everyone is free to vote as they like, think as they like, but the Petty family doesn’t stand for this. We believe in America and we believe in democracy. But Donald Trump is not representing the noble ideals of either. We would hate for fans that are marginalized by this administration to think we were complicit in this usage. Concurrently, we have issued an official cease and desist notice to the Trump campaign.”

I’ve always had a deep appreciation of Tom Petty and always bought his CDs. He was a true original. As for Lara Trump, I hope she doesn’t quit her day job — whatever the hell that is. Here her version of Petty’s song and right underneath that, Petty’s original version (which even features Ringo on the drums). And I’ll warn you in advance, Lara’s is horrible…like, it will hurt your ears horrible.

Now THIS is a masterpiece: