Trumpists Admit That Their Own Social Media Platforms Aren’t Much Fun When They Can’t Use Them To Own The Libs
from the interesting-what-you're-admitting-here dept
We’ve covered some of the difficulties Trump’s Truth Social is having getting users to actually use the platform, and the same appears to be true for the various other Trumpist Twitter wannabes like Parler and GETTR. NBC News has a somewhat hilarious story in which its reporters went to talk to “conservative influencers” to get their thoughts, and they all seem unenthusiastic about those other platforms, whining that they’re all just “echo chambers.”
That buzz was tempered by influencers who said while they do use these platforms, they don’t see them as a replacement for the wide reach of the mainstream options. Many of them used the phrase “echo chamber” when discussing their concerns about the platforms.
“I think the challenge that a lot of these newer ones have is to not be an echo chamber for people who hold similar beliefs,” said Alex Weber, a content creator who was embraced by conservatives online after posting videos criticizing mask mandates, vaccine mandates and the mainstream media. “I think why Instagram and Facebook and all these are so impactful is because you’ve got all different types of people.”
This is amusing (and telling) on multiple levels. First of all, considering how much time they spent whining about how Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. were their own “echo chambers” they actually know, deep down, that those sites actually have “got all different types of people.” That’s because contrary to the Trumpist narrative, none of those sites actually ban people based on ideology. They only do so if you violate their rules. The narrative of viewpoint-based discrimination is bullshit. And conservatives know it.
It’s also amusing in that it emphasizes that these “influencers” are only doing this because they want to engage in culture wars. They get clout by “owning the libs” or whatever other nonsense, and you can’t do that unless you can rile people up.
But, most importantly, it should put into stark relief what many of these pretend “free speech” battles are about. It’s not about the right to speak — because they have that on all these other platforms. What they’re really demanding is a right to an audience, and no matter what Elon Musk says, “free speech principles” have never included that.
Filed Under: audience, conservatives, echo chambers, free speech, influencers, trumpists
Companies: gab, gettr, parler, truth social
Comments on “Trumpists Admit That Their Own Social Media Platforms Aren’t Much Fun When They Can’t Use Them To Own The Libs”
Shocker
A platform by trolls for trolls is boring for the trolls.
These alternatives will always fail
And they will all fail because they want something that can’t possibly exist:
A Twitter/FB-like experience with Twitter/FB’s user base, where they can say all the hateful things they want, but no one is allowed to say anything hateful back.
This is one of the many reasons they all seem to fail.
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The reason why social media bans assholes is because they scare away the normal users and perhaps most importantly advertisers.
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That’s their point, though… Pissing in the punch bowl is no fun if it’s just them and their friends drinking from it.
If these new sites are echo chambers, it suggests that the users are only capable of spouting talking points that they have been given. real politics requires discussion of objectives and means, even when the participants have a common political philosophy. Without that discussion, elected politicians can ride rough shod over their constituents.
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Yes, that generally ends up being the case.
Re: But
The biggest part of this, is they will start to see whats happening.
NOTHING.
Blaming others, pointing fingers, and getting nothing done.
“right to an audience,”
Dont mean much if everyone sits around complaining.
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That’s the core design of right-wing media.
Defective by design
“I think the challenge that a lot of these newer ones have is to not be an echo chamber for people who hold similar beliefs,”
When your platform’s selling point is ‘if you’re too toxic for the big platforms come hang out at our place, you can be an asshole all you want’ pretty much the only people who are going to want to sign up are those toxic people so from the very start the platforms are doomed to only be populated by a specific type of person, ensuring the ‘echo chamber’ they are talking about.
Turns out if you want a diversity of opinion and demographics on your platform you need to crack down on the toxic users who would otherwise harass and make unwelcome anyone who isn’t them, who knew?
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You can be a toxic asshole in a number of different directions.
The problem is more that we are talking about dumb toxic assholes here who are drunk on the power of the comparatively smart people at Fox et al who design convenient alternative realities that are hard to dispell if enough people pick them up while still being annoying to people who know better.
This power of the stupid to annoy people who know better with talking schemes and preposterousness is not there on the alternative platforms that are just promising to be welcoming to this kind of denial-rich non-discourse.
The problem is not a lack of alternative opinions but of enjoyable victims.
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Turns out if you want a diversity of opinion and demographics on your platform you need to crack down on the toxic users who would otherwise harass and make unwelcome anyone who isn’t them, who knew?
I think we all know that “diversity of opinion” isn’t what the target demographic is after.
Irony. The GOP have for decades weaned their base on nothing but grievance addiction and scapegoating. It should have been clear as day that what their base desperately needs, with the obsessive want of a junkie looking for their next fix, is to be able to spew bile and venom on the other. Not sit in an echo chamber circle-jerk.
I’m pretty sure Trump’s version of Pravda would have worked out better if they could market it as a “platform where righteous americans can 0wn the libs”.
To put it bluntly: Every one of these conservative Twitter-likes suffer from the “Worst People” Problem and none of those services know how to solve it without also alienating that userbase.
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It’s not that they don’t know how to solve it, that’s easy, the problem they face is that they can’t solve it as doing so would involve driving away their target audience.
When your problem is your userbase you either solve the problem and get rid of your users or you keep the problem and your users, ‘solve the problem and keep your users’ is not an option by the problem’s very nature.
If a Trumpist falls in a forest of Trumpists, and nobody but Trumpists is there to hear it...
Does it make a sound?
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Yes, it makes this particular noise: “BUT HER EMAILS!”
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And when that echoes in the forest it sounds just like “BUT OBAMA”
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Yes, but you can’t hear it because of the leftist censorship.
Of course. It’s the same reason Techdirt’s resident trolls spend so much of their lives on a website they don’t even like: because they enjoy making other people’s experience with the site less pleasant.
Telling a Twitter troll to just go use Parler or whatever is like telling a subway flasher they can just go to a nude beach. It misses the point of why they’re doing what they’re doing. They don’t want a place where it’s socially acceptable to do it; the entire point is that they’re doing something socially unacceptable.
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Jesus Christ
Us Americans are fucking morons! They have absolutely no clue about anything! When I went to the USA I was gobsmacked by how ignorant and uninformed these people are. They have no fucking clue about anything going on in the world, just brainwashed by US propaganda. The most ignorant, backwards, uninformed humans on the planet, yet they pretend like they know everything! Appalling!
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Bitter much?
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cool
Re: parts of a problem
we can quote allot of people about that.
A democratic nation with only 2 sides, isnt democratic. There really isnt much choice or opinion.
The only way to get into an election, is to have money, the only way to get money is to belong to 1 of 2 groups. To belong to 1 of 2 groups means you are following in That line and if you dont, they will not Support you.
This is a closed nation, in many ways. The Corps control some, the Gov thinks it can control other things, but its all supposed to be Kinda controlled by the people. The corps control things by Not competing, with each other or with other countries.
Our Gov. seems to be at a bypass. For some reasoning, we are not electing those that have more knowledge then ourselves. Insted of At Least looking busy, they try to make thing worse. They make laws that need patches Worse the Windows ever needed.
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US Americans…as opposed to US Canadians? We haven’t colonized them yet.
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Key word: “yet”. Those hockeypuckers won’t know what hit ’em when we’re done! 🤣
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And they’ll probably apologize after we take over.
“Sorry you had to colonize us, eh?”
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As opposed to all other Americans. i know this is difficult for people to wrap their heads around, it’s like two and a half continents, it’s huge.
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Let me know when anyone not from the US refers to themselves as American on the basis that they’re from North America or South America.
Re: Re: Re:2
They wouldn’t, they don’t want to be confused with someone from the US. Telling, huh?
Re: Re: Re:3
No, it’s not telling at all. You’d be a North American if you’re from North America, a South American If you’re from South America, a Central American if you’re from Central America, or a Latin American if you’re from Latin America. Do you call people from Eurasia “Eurasians”? No. You call them Europeans if they’re from Europe or Asians if they’re from Asia.
And even if you had a point, it wouldn’t matter because language is defined based on how it is used, so if no one uses “American” to refer to people not from the US but are from North America or South America (themselves included), then that’s not what the word means. Just because you have a problem with that doesn’t mean you’re right.
Also, do you have an alternative demonym for people from the US?
Re: Re: Re:4
Canadians doesn’t call themselves Americans, Mexicans doesn’t call themselves Americans, Brazilians doesn’t call themselves Americans. Many of them will feel insulted if you call them American, unless the context for it makes sense.
The only ones from South America or North America calling themselves Americans are people from the US.
Re: Re: Re:5
Exactly my point.
Re: Re: Re:6
No, you are missing the point – they get upset because they don’t want to be confused with being an “American” – that is telling.
Re: Re: Re:7
No, it doesn’t mean anything. You’re reading too much into it. All it means is that no one else wants to be called Americans because people from the US were the first to call themselves that and everyone else has perfectly fine reasons for doing so.
More importantly, my point was that there is absolutely no reason to specify that you mean U.S.-Americans as opposed to any other Americans because literally no one else calls themselves that. Why they don’t is ultimately irrelevant.
And, for the record, I would not want to be confused with a Canadian or Mexican because I am neither.
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Riled At Wrongthink
A.k.a.- winning the debate and gaining followers.
-Getting censored proves that your opinion is the strongest.
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Do you know that there is a difference between winning a debate and battering your opponents into submission?
Re: Re:
There’s also a difference between a discussion, a debate, and an asshole intentionally shitting on the floor.
Guess which one Koby does every time he posts!
Re: Re: Re: The pigeon school of debate
‘Ahah, you have nothing to say to my acting of taking a dump in the middle of your living-room and then scampering away, that means I win!’
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There’s a difference between a debate and a reasoned discussion also.
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Hey, Koby: If a Twitter account connected to Al-Qaeda posts a political opinion—one that doesn’t violate any laws or any of Twitter’s rules—and Twitter bans that account anyway, does that mean Al-Qaeda’s opinion is the strongest?
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A.k.a.- winning the debate and gaining followers.
Welp, then there are no more problems are there? You’d got your own sites to freeze peach your fucking little heads off on.
Now go win your debates with each other.
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That then gets into the part of the article that Mas avoided. The influencers are primarily out there to reach the normies. They’re willing to step out of friendly territory to reach the masses and get new followers and subscribers. The problem with smaller platforms isn’t that they’re unenjoyable. Instead, the primary value of social media is its network effect.
Conservatives are much more willing to have the debate. The smug leftists view the purpose of social media as a safe space for their own viewpoints, where differing opinions aren’t tolerated, and must be forced elsewhere despite breaking none of the rules.
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[Projects facts contrary to any and all real-world evidence]
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You know, one sure sign of dishonesty, or mental illness for that matter, is arguing against factual reality.
And as always Koby the Coward, you are free to give specific examples of what opinions aren’t tolerated.
Anyway, I can debate with conservatives without problems all day because they actually have opinions and viewpoints that are debatable – it’s all the fucking entitled assholes and stupid knuckle-draggers who think they are conservatives that are the problem.
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No, he directly states that that’s the point. He also points out that the First Amendment doesn’t guarantee the right to a specific audience.
And they are not guaranteed the right to succeed or to do so on someone else’s platform.
To-may-to, to-mah-to.
Not really. They’re much more insistent that everyone has to hear what they say whether they want to or not, but they’re not more willing to actually have the debate. As a liberal, I love having the debate, but in my experience, the other side is often unwilling to even try to understand my points and just insist that I’m lying or I’ve been deceived or something.
Additionally, they are often unwilling to accept that others might have actually heard their side before and will repeat the same old points ad nauseum.
There are also the trolls who are just trying to provoke a reaction.
[citation needed] Also, which “differing opinions” aren’t tolerated? As Stephen Stone likes to say, be specific!
Re: Re: Re:2
Addendum: I actually do know many conservatives who are not like I described, but none of them complain about themselves or other conservatives being “censored” on social media platforms, so it’s a moot point.
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They’ve been gleefully moderating and booting people off their own platforms under the assumption that they’re leftist assholes. That’s not “willing to have the debate” by any definition.
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If the biggest network tossed you out because you were being a prick to others, well…tough shit. Their network, their rules—and I’d be saying the same about Parler, Truth Social, or any other alt-right shitpit.
Is that what conservatives call slinging anti-gay slurs and shittalking Black people these days, or is “debate” exclusively set aside for insurrections?
I’d wager that most people—including people you sneer at as “leftists”—view social media services like Twitter as the unholy combination of a networking tool, and entertainment outlet, and a real-time news source. The people who truly want a so-called safe space for their viewpoints are right-wing/conservative users, since they’re the ones most often claiming to be “censored” and most often pushing for “viewpoint neutrality” from social media services.
Of course, it’s not views like “deregulation is good” or “trickle-down economics works, actually” that right-wingers/conservatives want protected. You know exactly what kind of views they want protected; if you had any courage, you’d name those views instead of tapdancing around the issue like a coward.
Differing opinions on economics can and should be tolerated. “Differing opinions” on whether queer people deserve equal civil rights as non-queer people, on the other hand, should be met with derision and scorn—especially since such “opinions” tend to sound like “of course f⸺ts shouldn’t have the same rights as me”.
That you and your conservative brethren can’t seem to understand that your bullshit isn’t welcome on a platform that’s trying to attract as wide a userbase as possible is your problem. I can’t (and won’t) solve it for you.
Of fucking course you’re one of those rule-lawyering needledicks who want to find the best way to harangue queer people on social media while going “ha ha ha ha ha, fuck you, I’m not breaking any rules”.
Re: Re: Re: It's my viewpoint, you cant complain bro
“normies”
You want to know how I know you are an incel?
Re: Re: Re: “Don’t discriminate based on viewpoints” bro
My viewpoint is you are a fucking muppet.
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Must be why they’re banning books and any discussion of “racism”
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The smug leftists view the purpose of social media as a safe space for their own viewpoints, where differing opinions aren’t tolerated, and must be forced elsewhere despite breaking none of the rules.
So you’ve got your own platforms now. I’m still not seeing what you think is the problem. Let your ideas flourish on your platforms, where you can break (or not) the rules (or whatever you call them).
If you people are interesting enough, why wouldn’t we come debate with you?
(Here’s the rub – you assholes aren’t interesting. Not at all. You bitch, whine, and complain more than a household full of women whose periods are in full sync. That’s the real problem. It’s not that ‘we don’t want to debate.’ It’s that we’d rather not socialize with assholes. It’s really not that hard to understand. You want to turn every social interaction into a political fight. That’s what makes you assholes.)
HTH
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Exhibit A: Dave Rubin’s problems explaining where he’s getting his babies from.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUfreUxzaJA
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Back to boasting about your support of terrorists, bigots and lunatics I see.
Not sure why you feel the need to remind people you support that lot on a regular basis but you do you I suppose.
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Quite right! Man imagine how great the world would have been if those US SJWs hadn’t gone into Germany in the 40s and virtue signaled until Hitler canceled himself. Let us remind ourselves of the strongest opinion of them all, the superiority of the Aryan Race.
Poe’s Law Disclaimer: /sarcasm.
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Here’s Koby, readily admitting that the strongest opinions are those of:
Shall I keep going?
Really telling of what kind of a person you are Koby when you feel the above list of opinions are the strongest.
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It’s funny in a way, Koby has always been desperate to avoid answering exactly what content they think is being ‘censored’ on social media and then they come out with a ‘catchphrase’ that answers that question crystal clear and keep using it even after people point out exactly what kind of person the saying applies to, confirming that that’s the kind of people/speech they’re talking about.
It’s still not a detailed answer but I guess they got tired of dodging the question entirely and decided to provide the next best thing.
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I Kinda feel you missed the pedophiles on your list.
They keep getting thrown around (figuratively).
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At least you admit your opinions are the weakest.
Re: Sorry I couden't hear you over your theme music!
Bravely bold Sir Koby
Rode forth from the Internet.
He was not afraid to die,
Oh brave Sir Koby.
He was not at all afraid
To be killed in nasty ways.
Brave, brave, brave, brave Sir Koby.
He was not in the least bit scared
To be mashed into a pulp.
Or to have his eyes gouged out,
And his elbows broken.
To have his kneecaps split
And his body burned away,
And his limbs all hacked and mangled
Brave Sir Koby.
His head smashed in
And his heart cut out
And his liver removed
And his bowls unplugged
And his nostrils raped
And his bottom burnt off
And his penis
“That’s, that’s enough music for now lads, there’s dirty work afoot.”
Brave Sir Koby ran away.
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“-Getting censored proves that your opinion is the strongest.”
If what you mean is, the strongest stink like shit, then yes.
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You know, Koby, your persistent self-owns may be amusing but this is almost to the point where I have to feel pity for you; You’re literally claiming the strongest opinions around belong to terrorists, pedophiles and bona fide nazis.
I think that for your own sake you need to drop that quote. It isn’t proving the point you think it’s proving. 😂
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I’d have to disagree, they’ve spent so much time being dishonest about which speech they’ve concerned is being ‘censored’ it’s refreshing for them to finally admit what speech that is, even if they have to do so indirectly.
That it turns out to include the worst of the worst just explains why they have been so hesitant to provide specifics, they’ve been working up their courage to admit who and what they’re cheer-leading for all this time and it’s taken them this long to even provide a vague answer.
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The problem with that argument is that it’s quite possible to attract followers with a pack of lies, and if you had to resort a pack of lies, then you’re not really winning the debate, are you?
I’m considered “liberal” and I agree.
Facebook with no conservatives or Trumsters, whats the point?
Re: What's the point? This is.
[The Simpsons – A World Without Lawyers.gif]
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A world without lawyers … but with a preview button!
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… that strikes me as asking what’s the point of having a burger that doesn’t include maggots(or MAGAts as it were) and moldy bread.
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But that presumes the goal is to remove “conservatives” or “trumpsters”, if the goal however is to remove the -liars- and -people inciting violence- then the point is you end up with an honest debate of the issues on their merits.
“and the conservatives know it”
this. they know. i bet they know their policies are crap, but again, anything to own the libs.
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That’s WHY owning the woke libs is the only “thought” they have. They know their policies only benefit the rich and powerful an no one else. It’s the only way to get votes.
They want clout, social media works by nos, how many
people read your post,quote them, link to them, retweet them, its dull to go to a website that is just composed of random trumpist posts,conspiracy theorys,fake news, if you have enough followers you,ll get invited on podcasts or paid to make speechs, conservatives love to complain about censorship, theres millions of conservatives on facebook, as long as you dont threaten anyone, or post violent or illegal content you can post on fb.the rules apply to all users liberal or conservative
every website or app has rules they apply to everyone.Most people want to interact with friends and family, its the network effect, like if young people post a video they,ll use tik tok or youtube ,
you want to reach a mass audience.
They should take turns owning themselves.
They might grow fond of it
So much to work with
Seems easy
With their user base just toss in a large smattering of chat bot profiles for them to “own”
The problem is they did, in fact, “own the libs”. Part of the selling points Trumpists boasted for their platforms was the fact that they got to decide who stayed and who didn’t. The ones who didn’t get to stay were often taken to be big mean Democrats or libs or anyone that the moderators simply didn’t like. And these instances were, more often than not, celebrated as victories for the platforms by chasing these undesirables away from their conservative safe spaces.
The problem with that plan is that without undesirables to focus their efforts on, Trumpists effectively killed the golden goose that laid the golden eggs.
FFS, is that all you conservatives can think of? And when it comes down to it, are the libs actually being owned when all they’re doing is simply pointing out that your ass is sucking raw buttermilk?
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When you’re desperate, you take what you can get. Then again these are the chumps who proudly wear their “I’d rather be Russian than Democrat” shirts for all to see, they’d gladly off themselves if it means thinking that leftists might become slightly annoyed.
What a boring place...
Everyone is just like me.
“I think why Instagram and Facebook and all these are so impactful is because you’ve got all different types of people.”
It’s almost like large social media companies aren’t actually censoring and blocking any particular group en masse.
This strongly reminds me of that New South African citizen from Snow Crash