Tag: Twitter

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Trump Tells NY & CA He’ll Help With Homelessness If They Ask “Politely”

Donald Trump

Donald Trump took to Twitter today to rant about the issue of homelessness in America. Well, not exactly. The Trumpster tweeted specifically about the homelessness problem in two very blue states: California and New York. Trump wrote, “California and New York must do something about their TREMENDOUS Homeless problems. They are setting records! If their Governors can’t handle the situation, which they should be able to do very easily, they must call and ‘politely’ ask for help. Would be so easy with competence!” It’s worth noting, however, that a Rockefeller Institute of Government study this year found that New York’s residents and businesses consistently send more revenue to the Federal government than any other state, and the state continues to contribute more in taxes than the state receives back in federal spending. And residents of California pay one of the highest rates of federal taxes per capita in the country. As president, states shouldn’t have to beg or “politely” ask for help. That’s what the federal government is there for, and what they pay taxes for. And in the case of these two states, a LOT of taxes. Trump forgets that he’s not a king whose ring should be kissed. He’s an employee of the people of the United States. The Donald’s real issue here isn’t worrying about the homeless (which he’d rather just not see), but the fact that California and New York have governors who won’t bow down to him. Later in the day, Trump took another swipe at New York tweeting, “So sad to see that New York City and State are falling apart. All they want to do is investigate to make me hate them even more than I should. Governor Cuomo has lost control, and lost his mind. Very bad for the homeless and all!”

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Nyle DiMarco’s Christmas Tweet Goes Viral As Superstar Joins In

‘Dancing with the Stars’ champ Nyle DiMarco (image via Instagram)
Just in time for Christmas, Dancing with the Stars and America’s Next Top Model champ Nyle DiMarco saw his 2019 hit its peak when a favorite celeb chimed in on his Twitter. As a member of the Deaf Community, the dashing DiMarco is a big advocate for American Sign Language (ASL). It’s estimated that there are 70 million Deaf people in the world, but only two percent have access to education in sign language leaving millions without the education they need.

DiMarco often shares some phrases of ASL with his Twitter followers to encourage more people to learn the visual language. Two days ago, he began a thread showing folks how to sign the title of Mariah Carey’s blockbuster holiday hit, “All I Want For Christmas Is You.” The ASL challenge was Nyle’s way of celebrating Mariah’s newly-anointed 19th No. 1 single for its 25th anniversary this holiday season. And he asked folks to video themselves signing the phrase and post it on the thread.

Next thing you know, Nyle is getting videos from all over the United States and around the world.

Even Hollywood stars like Lea Thompson, Daniel Dae Kim, Chella Man and Marlee Matlin played along:

But then, Mariah herself took note of the viral Twitter-fest:

And Nyle’s mind was officially blown:

The actor/activist was still in a giving mood as he shared his last mirror selfie for the decade:

View this post on Instagram

the last mirror selfie of the decade 🚀🤟🏼

A post shared by Nyle DiMarco (@nyledimarco) on

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Twitter Round-Up: Weekend Edition

Some really fun stuff on Twitter lately, so I thought I’d share some of my favorites:

And then there was this exchange between woofy Pennsylvania state Rep. Brian Sims and out recording artist Bright Light Bright Light that made my morning:

And while we’re on the subject of Bright Light Bright Light, check out his synth-pop version of the holiday classic, “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas,” released in 2017.

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Sore Loser: Trump Criticizes 16-Year-Old Named TIME’s Person Of The Year

Donald Trump criticized a 16-year-old girl on Twitter after she was named TIME Magazine's Person of the Year

Donald Trump criticized a 16-year-old girl on Twitter after she was named TIME Magazine's Person of the Year
L-R Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump
Following the announcement of climate change activist Greta Thunberg being named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year, Donald Trump (who highly covets the TIME honor) criticized the 16-year-old on Twitter. From CNN:

President Donald Trump on Thursday again publicly mocked teen climate crisis activist Greta Thunberg, tweeting that the 16-year-old Swede who has inspired protesters worldwide has “anger management” issues.

Thunberg, who was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year earlier this week over Trump, has sternly castigated world leaders for not doing enough to combat the climate crisis, and memorably stared down Trump at the UN General Assembly in September. She has been open about her diagnosis of Asperger’s, calling it a “superpower” that helps her activism.

“So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!” Trump wrote Thursday morning, responding to a tweet congratulating Thunberg on being named Person of the Year.

Asperger’s is a challenge for any teenager. Being mocked by the president of the US is next level cruelty. Greta responded by rewriting her bio for Twitter:

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Aaron Rupar: ‘Shot, Chaser, Oblivion’

Donald Trump tweeted today that any news story that doesn’t have “an actual living name on it” should not be believed. It, of course, must be ‘fake news.’ I always think this is a bit of projection again on Trump’s part because he knows he made up ‘fake news’ sources over the years. So, he assumes everyone else does. Vox reporter Aaron Rupar reminds us of just a few times when Trump himself announced ‘fake news’ with no names attached. #TheresAlwaysATweet

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Reporter ‘Deeply Regrets’ Misquoting Buttigieg After Mistake Goes Viral

Mayor Pete Buttigieg on the campaign trail (via Buttigieg campaign/FB)
A reporter for the Los Angeles Times has issued an apology for misquoting Democratic presidential hopeful Mayor Pete Buttigieg in an article published on Sunday. Evan Halper seemed to have gotten a newsworthy quote from Buttigieg where the midwestern mayor appeared to blame President Barack Obama for the election of Donald Trump. At the end of Halper’s article, he quoted Buttigieg as saying, “The failures of the Obama era help explain how we got Trump.” What the openly gay mayor actually said was, “The failures of the old normal help explain how we got Trump.” Halper took to Twitter early Monday morning to apologize saying he misheard what Buttigieg as a “result of transcribing a noisy recording.”

Buttigieg was responding to being compared to former Vice President Joe Biden and billionaire Michael Bloomberg. “My message is not about going back to where we were,” said Buttigieg. “I think because I come from a part of the country where ‘normal’ has been a real problem for a very long time, and I think the failures of the old normal help explain how we got Trump period.” “So, I’m much more interested in running on building a future that is going to have a lot of differences,” he added. Apparently, the communications team for Buttigieg’s campaign records and archives his interviews. They’ve got the receipts and posted the audio recording to YouTube. Buttigieg’s statement comes at the 45-second mark:

Buttigieg accepted Halper’s ‘swift and honest’ apology via Twitter:

Apologies are nice, but in the time that the article was published and the apology was issued, the hashtag #ByePete had begun trending on Twitter. Some folks in the Twitterverse were not happy. Here’s just a sample:

Once seen as a ‘long-shot’ candidate, Buttigieg has continued to rise in the polls. And with higher polling positions, he has attracted closer scrutiny to his policies and public statements. The Real Clear Politics average of national polls currently shows Buttigieg in 4th place behind Biden and Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT). RCP average of polls for first-in-the-nation Iowa, however, indicates he trails only Warren. A first or second-place finish in the Iowa caucus’ for Buttigieg would give even more credibility to his candidacy.

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A Gay Teen Had Enough Of Being Called ‘F*ggot’

Jordan Steffy had had enough. In his Twitter bio, Jordan writes, “Don’t let one word define who you are.” He had been called ‘f*ggot’ one time too many and was DONE. The LaPorte High School junior in Indiana says that he’s been the target of homophobic bullying since he came out in seventh grade. Steffy shared with Insider.com that a classmate recently posted a homophobic message on Snapchat using a photo of him. “He made an anti-gay post with a picture of me on it saying how he hated gays and a bunch of throwing up emojis all over it,” Steffy told Insider. “I walked up to him and said ‘Why did you post this?’ He said ‘It was just a post.’ And I said ‘Well, it’s not just a post. It’s a post about me, saying how you dislike who I am, and I don’t appreciate that.’ He went on to say ‘Okay, but what are you going to do about it?’ I said ‘I’m not going to deal with this, this is the last time I’m called anything.’ “And then he said ‘What are you going to do about it, faggot?’ And that’s when I was like ‘No, I’m not doing this.'” What followed was the slap seen round the world. https://twitter.com/JordanSteffy1/status/1193002314879184898 The video has been viewed more than a million times on Twitter in less than a day. In subsequent responses to others, Jordan was surprised by the show of support, saying “I really can’t believe people actually are around to tell me that it was ok to stick up for myself!” “I honestly was just looking for an apology,” said Jordan. “But he acted like it was no big deal and that has been the word to define me since 2nd grade.” Apparently the fallout was the school suspended him and the bully, but his suspension was longer “due to the fighting.” Jordan added, “But I am taking it as a lesson to not be anyone’s doormat and to leave your shoes at the door.” One Twitter user asked if he was ok and he answered with a resounding, “Yes I’m good better than ever – I honestly can’t thank people enough for all the support! Thank you for taking the time to check!” One parent wrote, “As a mom, I think you did good.” Jordan responded that his mom totally has his back. He shared that while his mom doesn’t condone fighting, she felt it was ok to stand up not only for himself but for others as well. In fact, because his mother didn’t like the way the school administration handled the event, Jordan says she’s decided to homeschool Jordan. As folks offered their support, Jordan said he doesn’t think he’s “any better than any person just because I stuck up for myself.” He went on to add he wants other kids “who are going through the same thing day in, day out from friends, classmates, random people” to stick up for themselves “and to have confidence!” And the collective consciousness of bullied LGBTQ students rose up and cheered. https://twitter.com/DoctorJonPaul/status/1192984942537363457 https://twitter.com/davitydave/status/1193007679230185472 https://twitter.com/Joshooahvee88/status/1193023310679986177 https://twitter.com/invertibrate/status/1193082071368916993 https://twitter.com/jarekendel/status/1193016086112980993 https://twitter.com/loudandobvious/status/1193009454574264321 https://twitter.com/IsbaeMinsuga/status/1193163356015869952 https://twitter.com/anthony_MB75/status/1193076975390380032 https://twitter.com/CRUELCASSIUS/status/1193065966550355968 https://twitter.com/Kangaesugiru/status/1193059704903102464 https://twitter.com/Vindemiaee/status/1193215751416619008 https://twitter.com/YungxZorua/status/1193015184052367362   Some had no time for the unseen teacher who chimed in with a tame, “Hey, hey, Jordan, that’s enough.” Or, maybe the teacher wanted Jordan to get some licks in…? https://twitter.com/readkropotkin/status/1193150343359664129 https://twitter.com/ScrapeSquadMK/status/1193041967799816192 https://twitter.com/heschristofer/status/1192992735705231360 https://twitter.com/rob_bieber/status/1193151177271267328   I want to be clear that violence shouldn’t have to be ‘the answer.’ But, as we can see in the outpouring of support for Jordan, there are a LOT of folks out there who understand this scenario all too well.

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Twitter Will Soon Stop All Political Advertising

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (cropped image via Flickr/cellanr – CC License)
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey announced today that his social media platform will soon stop all political advertising.

Here’s the text of the full thread (which you can see on Twitter here):

We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…

A political message earns reach when people decide to follow an account or retweet. Paying for reach removes that decision, forcing highly optimized and targeted political messages on people. We believe this decision should not be compromised by money.

While internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, that power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions.

Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale.

These challenges will affect ALL internet communication, not just political ads. Best to focus our efforts on the root problems, without the additional burden and complexity taking money brings. Trying to fix both means fixing neither well, and harms our credibility.

For instance, it‘s not credible for us to say: “We’re working hard to stop people from gaming our systems to spread misleading info, buuut if someone pays us to target and force people to see their political ad…well…they can say whatever they want! 😉”

We considered stopping only candidate ads, but issue ads present a way to circumvent. Additionally, it isn’t fair for everyone but candidates to buy ads for issues they want to push. So we’re stopping these too.

We’re well aware we‘re a small part of a much larger political advertising ecosystem. Some might argue our actions today could favor incumbents. But we have witnessed many social movements reach massive scale without any political advertising. I trust this will only grow.

In addition, we need more forward-looking political ad regulation (very difficult to do). Ad transparency requirements are progress, but not enough. The internet provides entirely new capabilities, and regulators need to think past the present day to ensure a level playing field.

We’ll share the final policy by 11/15, including a few exceptions (ads in support of voter registration will still be allowed, for instance). We’ll start enforcing our new policy on 11/22 to provide current advertisers a notice period before this change goes into effect.

A final note. This isn’t about free expression. This is about paying for reach. And paying to increase the reach of political speech has significant ramifications that today’s democratic infrastructure may not be prepared to handle. It’s worth stepping back in order to address.