Senior researcher studying US hate + extremist movements for @isdglobal // sometimes reporter or photographer or musician
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Sep 23 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
White nationalist Nick Fuentes declared "Groyper War" against the Trump campaign last month. By political measures, it's been a total failure. But the crude tactics it used online may pave the way for other bad actors
My latest @ ISD w/ Nathan Doctor
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isdglobal.org/digital_dispat…
"Groyper War II" was most active when Musk interviewed Trump on this platform. Counting reposts, Fuentes and fans were posting thousands of times per minute. They got a few topics to trend.
ISD took a harder look at YouTube's recommendation algorithms, which powers 70% of all views on the platform. One weird finding that came out of this: YouTube was shoveling religious content to all the profiles, despite none showing interest in it...
Nothing about Candace Owen’s arc is surprising if you know about her come up in conservative media. Her big initial hit was claiming white supremacy wasn’t real after Heather Heyer was murdered in Charlottesville. She cohosted episodes of Infowars with Alex Jones, etc.
Candace was hired by “serious” orgs because she was willing to say insane stuff and pretend she represents a larger segment of Black Republicans than she actually does. IMO, the play with her hire into the establishment was “maybe she’ll radicalize some people in our favor”
Jan 25, 2023 • 6 tweets • 1 min read
Pulled a tweet about the FB/Trump stuff that while accurate felt like an oversimplification of the situation. Gonna get my thoughts together and maybe take another go at the take machine. Idk
(It was the tweet that noted Trump’s campaign bought close to 300,000 FB ads in 2020.)
I have very mixed feelings about bans against politicians and governments. It’s one of those things that makes blatant how much unchecked power those companies can wield when they want to. But also, if those figures get a special plane of rules and exemptions, that’s unfair.
Jan 11, 2023 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Health insurance. Massive slimeball scam industry, and the only thing worse than dealing with it is not having insurance. (And sometimes insurance can even make prescriptions MORE expensive! Why do we put up with this? Who actually likes their insurance?)
Also pre-tax 401k contribution system is kind of scammy, too. Government bets your investments will appreciate over time and they’ll get to take more $$$ from you when you withdraw vs when you contribute. Good short term, but a rip off in the long run.
Nov 27, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
It is increasingly looking like a crew of fascist internet performers are hooking each other up inside the dead-on-arrival Kanye campaign. Pretty gross to watch them all exploit a clearly unwell man for their own pockets and gasps at relevance. Says it all about those folks.
These folks claim to be on an ideological path. In reality they would gobble dog shit if someone convinced them it would make them more famous. Candace Owens and now these folks — just stripping Kanye from his money. Pretty gross to watch.
Nov 7, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
.@ISDglobal's US team has some new research out ahead of election day.
First, a look at how social media platform pivots to short-form video has been a boom for election disinformation and how platforms failed to prep for it. isdglobal.org/digital_dispat…
Next, we've got a look at vigilante ballot drop box monitoring and the social media content ecosystem that orbits those efforts. isdglobal.org/digital_dispat…
Oct 24, 2022 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Gavin McInnes was going to speak at Penn State tonight. Students protested in the hundreds. It's not happening anymore.
Totally embarrassing statement from Penn State when the stated "violence" was actually people who showed up to support McInnes spraying mace at counter-protesters and journalists. Just incompetent.
Talked to the New York Times and stood on my soapbox to say: “Nothing on the internet exists in a silo.”
Content flows from platform to platform. It’s one of the challenges of countering bullshit effectively. Any answer to it has to confront that fact. nytimes.com/2022/10/20/tec…
There’s some saying. I think it goes “a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth puts its pants on.” Works online too, if not more so
Oct 17, 2022 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
Key context here is that Candace Owens’ husband George Farmer is the CEO of Parler.
Baffling that so many news stories about the acquisition are missing this context. This is why the news desk needs to talk to its beat reporters for these stories! The headline is that Owens used her friendship with Kanye to offload a dying platform. Not another celeb tech buy!
