Color me shocked, but a new report shows misinformation on social media dropped dramatically after Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. From the Washington Post:
Online misinformation about election fraud plunged 73 percent after several social media sites suspended President Trump and key allies last week, research firm Zignal Labs has found, underscoring the power of tech companies to limit the falsehoods poisoning public debate when they act aggressively.
The new research by the San Francisco-based analytics firm reported that conversations about election fraud dropped from 2.5 million mentions to 688,000 mentions across several social media sites in the week after Trump was banned from Twitter.
Election disinformation had for months been a major subject of online misinformation, beginning even before the Nov. 3 election and pushed heavily by Trump and his allies.
The drop in misinformation was seen across numerous platforms after Trump was kicked off social media including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Spotify and more. And it wasn’t just removing Trump that made the difference. Twitter also removed more than 70,000 accounts affiliated with the conspiracy movement known as QAnon, which played a large role in raising temperatures that led to the Capitol invasion on January 6. Read the full article at The Washington Post.
(stock photo via Depositphotos)Ah, the things said to gay dads… Robin Morgan-Bentley, a senior manager at Audible, and his husband became parents this past year. He shared via his Twitter account some of the somewhat awkward comments they’ve received as gay dads. “Top 10 things actual people have said to me and my husband this year, as new gay dads,” writes the proud dad.
Top 10 things actual people have said to me and my husband this year, as new gay dads: a thread 🤣😬🤬
Siegfried Fischbacher Some news items you might have missed: • The Advocate: Las Vegas illusionist Siegfried Fischbacher, of Siegfried and Roy fame, has died at age 81. Fischbacher died Wednesday night at his home in Vegas due to pancreatic cancer. Roy Horn, his partner in life and work, died last May of COVID-19 complications at age 75. • Defense One: The Pentagon, in a break with recent tradition, will not host an Armed Forces Farewell tribute to President Donald Trump. Trump will leave office in disgrace, one week after the House voted a second time for his impeachment, two weeks after his supporters staged a deadly siege in the Capitol Building, six months after he dragged his Joint Chiefs chairman into a political firestorm, and after four years of nonstop assaults on truth. • Broadway Cares: Beloved stars from All My Children, One Life to Live and General Hospital will reunite for ABC Daytime: Back on Broadway, a one-night-only streaming concert benefiting Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The free streamed event can be watched at broadwaycares.org beginning at 8 pm Eastern on Thursday, February 11.
• Business Insider: GOP elected officials lost thousands of Twitter followers over the weekend, as the company cracked down on QAnon accounts in the aftermath of the Capitol Hill riots. Rep. Jim Jordan’s followers took the biggest dive with nearly 150,000 purged or defected. • ABC News: Amazon Web Services has responded to Parler’s lawsuit against it with a series of screenshots of hateful content – loaded with threats of violence and racial slurs – that allegedly spread on the platform. One screenshot of a Parler post features a slew of racial slurs about Michelle Obama and another states, “The only good democrat is a dead one.” • Variety: Lady Gaga is set to sing the national anthem for the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris on Jan. 20. Film and recording star Jennifer Lopez will perform as well.
A case of ‘a little too late,’ but Twitter just announced it has permanently suspended Donald Trump’s Twitter account.
After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.
In the context of horrific events this week, we made it clear on Wednesday that additional violations of the Twitter Rules would potentially result in this very course of action. Our public interest framework exists to enable the public to hear from elected officials and world leaders directly. It is built on a principle that the people have a right to hold power to account in the open.
However, we made it clear going back years that these accounts are not above our rules entirely and cannot use Twitter to incite violence, among other things. We will continue to be transparent around our policies and their enforcement.Twitter locked Trump’s account for 12 hours over inflammatory tweets on Wednesday evening, but gave him back the keys. Earlier today, Axios reported that Twitter had suspended the accounts of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and President Trump’s lawyer Sidney Powell on Friday for breaking the platform’s “Coordinated Harmful Activity” policy.
Donald Trump (image: public domain) Donald Trump has been blocked from his Facebook and Instagram accounts for at least two weeks according to a statement by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. This comes in response to yesterday’s invasion of the Capitol building by pro-Trump cultists. “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great,” read a statement on the Facebook Newsroom Twitter account. “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.” Twitter, on the other hand, restored access to Trump’s account Thursday morning after a 12 hour time-out for blasting out a series of falsehoods as rioters stormed the U.S. Capitol. As of this writing, the Donald has not posted any new tweets. But it’s early in the day…
We believe the risks of allowing President Trump to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great, so we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks. pic.twitter.com/JkyGOTYB1Z
Donald Trump (screen capture) Twitter has locked Donald Trump’s personal Twitter account for 12 hours due to “repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy” as his nutjob cultists invaded the US Capitol on Wednesday. According to the @TwitterSafety account, the violations were connected to three tweets. One included a video message shared to his followers and another defended the extremists who invaded the Capitol today: “These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long.” Those tweets have since been deleted. “If the Tweets are not removed, the account will remain locked,” Twitter added. “Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.” Facebook and YouTube also removed his video message to the insurrectionists.
As a result of the unprecedented and ongoing violent situation in Washington, D.C., we have required the removal of three @realDonaldTrump Tweets that were posted earlier today for repeated and severe violations of our Civic Integrity policy. https://t.co/k6OkjNG3bM
Future violations of the Twitter Rules, including our Civic Integrity or Violent Threats policies, will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.
First Lady Melania Trump with children wearing face masks at the White House First Lady Melania Trump is probably very happy to be done with her last Christmas in the White House. Yesterday, her official Twitter account shared a short video showing her showing the White House decorations to young children (all wearing face masks) while she didn’t bother to wear a mask even though that’s the official position of the CDC. That, plus the leaked audio of a conversation with a former aide where she complained about having to oversee the holiday decor of the White House (“Who gives a f*ck about Christmas stuff and decoration…?”), is probably the most transparent perspective we’ll have of the soon-to-be-former First Lady. Twitter wasn’t amused.
People in the future will see videos like this and be confounded by the children wearing masks for safety and the First Lady doing whatever she feels like.
Isn’t it wonderful to see our first lady trying to be such a great example of leadership by showing all these young kids around and being up close and personal WITHOUT wearing a mask herself? It’s not hard; wear a mask!
Charlie Kirk can’t math (image via Instagram) Conservative pundit Charlie Kirk began trending on Twitter this morning after it was discovered that math poses special challenges for the young Mr. Kirk. Kirk, who runs the far-right student group Turning Point USA (which attracts a lot of support from white nationalists), apparently thought he could prove that Donald Trump’s baseless voter fraud allegations are true. Kirk tweeted the vote totals and number of counties won by Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and most recently, President-elect Joe Biden. Barack Obama: – 69,000,000 votes, 873 counties Donald Trump: 75,000,000, 2,497 counties Joe Biden: 81,000,000 votes, 477 counties He followed those stats with the statement “And we’re not allowed to question his ‘victory.'” As most people know, conservative/Republican presidential candidates tend to do well in rural areas (i.e. counties with not a lot of people) and Democratic candidates see much of their support in urban areas (big cities where there are a LOT of people in a relatively small area). I’m guessing Kirk was stumped by the fact that Donald Trump might have won many more counties than Joe Biden but didn’t win the election. For instance, here in my state of Nevada, Trump handily won Esmeralda county with a vote total of 400 votes to Biden’s 74. Yep, those were the total votes cast for those candidates. Meanwhile, Biden won Clark country with 521,852 votes over Trump’s 430,930 votes – a difference of over 90,000 votes. See how that works, Charlie? At the end of the race, if you get the most votes in a state, you win that state’s electoral college votes. County lines don’t factor in how votes are counted. Twitter had a field day about population density and the fact that land can’t vote.
The most populous county in Texas (Harris, which Biden won) has *27,495 times* the population of the least populous county in Texas (Loving, which Trump won).
That’s not a typo; it’s 4.65 million people versus … 169.
Counties are an arbitrary and meaningless unit. California, with a population of 40 million, has 58 counties…while Montana, with only one million residents, has 56 counties.
Loving County, Texas – 90.9% trump, 4% Biden (60 to 4 in actual votes) Los Angeles County, California – 71% Biden, 26.9% trump (3,028,885 to 1,145,530 actual votes)
Trump supporters get upset when you point out that 81 million is bigger than 74 million and 306 electoral votes is +36 more than you need to be declared the winner.
(MAGA hat in shadows – photo: R Nial Bradshaw/LLC license) Parler, the conservative/uncensored alternative to Twitter, is having some issues after breaking out of the gate to much fanfare. The new social media platform was the shizzle for a second as it was the most downloaded app in the US in the beginning of November. A month later, the app had fallen to #587 according to App Annie. (screen capture via App Annie) From Vice:
A month later, the app’s popularity has plummeted as downloads and daily active user numbers have fallen off dramatically — and now even some of the most influential figures in the QAnon community are criticizing it.
The company announced on Nov. 12 that its membership had almost doubled since the election a week earlier, from 4.5 million to 8 million.
But once people got there, they found that it wasn’t really much fun.
The platform bills itself as “a non-biased, free speech social media focused on protecting user’s rights,” but in reality, it has become an echo chamber of right-wing ideologies and extremist views. Many conservatives have grown tired of Parler because there’s no one with an opposing point of view to argue with.
Additionally, there’s a reported influx of pornography because the app’s lax moderation policies make it easy for adult entertainment folks to bombard the users there.
A 21-year-old bisexual Trump supporter spent the majority of 2020 impersonating relatives of Donald Trump on Twitter and in doing so appears to have scammed thousands of dollars from LGBTQ Trumpers.
The New York Times spoke with Josh Hall, who lives in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania, about his wild Twitter ride which included pretending to be Robert Trump, brother to the president; 14-year-old Barron Trump, the Donald’s son; and just last month Trump’s sister, Elizabeth Trump Grau.
Hall not only fooled hundreds of thousands of Trump fans – collectively accruing over 160,000 followers – but even tricked Trump himself, who just last month posted an article about his ‘sister’ who had announced she was joining Twitter to support her brother’s fight to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“Thank you Elizabeth,” tweeted the Donald. “LOVE!”
(screen capture)
Except, “Elizabeth” was actually Mr. Hall cloaked behind the fake Twitter account. Trump’s tweet is still on his account at this writing.
In an interview with the New York Times, Hall admitted he was stunned to have fooled Trump. “I was like, ‘Oh, my goodness. He actually thinks it’s his sister.”
Hall shared with the Times that he became interested in politics and Donald Trump four years ago. “I kind of thought he was like a clown at first,” he said. “But the more I heard him talk, I realized: Yeah, he says kind of off-the-wall things, but I do agree with what he’s saying.”
Energized by Trump’s heated rhetoric, Hall began to dream of becoming a conservative talk-radio host. In an attempt to develop an online presence, he fought with liberals on Twitter and launched a “public figure” page on Facebook.
He also self-published a short e-book titled Hall Nation which shared his “38 essential rules” for living a happy life. As a Trump supporter, the first rule isn’t surprising: “Insults are a good thing.”
In real life, Hall apparently found it difficult to hold down a job moving from hotel clerk to sandwich maker, and eventually delivering food for Door Dash.
But online, he was learning to establish a small following. That journey was curtailed when he found himself banned from Twitter for creating multiple accounts as different people. “Once I got banned from Twitter, my attitude was kind of like, ‘What the hell, I’m just going to have fun now,’” he told the Times.
So, he began creating fake accounts posing as well-known people in the political sphere.
(screen capture via NY Times)
He started with a parody account of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich who had received a pardon from Trump. That account garnered upward of 26,000 followers before it was deleted by Twitter.
Hall returned with more accounts pretending to be Dr. Birx from the White House Coronavirus Task Force at one point, and then Trump’s brother, Robert.
Through all of this, Hall claims “There was no nefarious intention behind it. I was just trying to rally up MAGA supporters and have fun.”
It was during his fake “Robert Trump” phase that he used the account to promote his own new Twitter account, @TheBiTrumpGuy, and his fake group, “Gay Voices for Trump.”
He even encouraged Trumpers (as “Robert Trump”) to donate to a GoFundMe campaign organized by Hall that was purported to support “field organizing, events and merchandise.” The fundraiser brought in $7,384.
(screen capture via NY Times)
Hall says he “never got the funds” from the crowdfunding campaign, but GoFundMe tells the Times the money was withdrawn by an account named Josh H.
All in all, it’s a timely tale of how much disinformation there is on social media. And a serious reminder to not believe everything you see on social media.
Head over to the New York Times to read the full accounting.
Color me shocked, but a new report shows misinformation on social media dropped dramatically after Donald Trump was banned from Twitter. From the Washington Post: 
