Twitter has been following through on its plans to purge locked accounts:
President Donald Trump's yuge Twitter following has taken a whack.
Since Twitter started purging locked accounts on Thursday, the tweeter-in-chief has lost 300,000 followers. The president now has 53.1 million followers, according to his account page.
[...] The drop comes as Twitter follows through on its Wednesday statement that it's removing locked accounts from users' follower counts. The purge is part of an ongoing effort to clean up the social media platform after reports that some companies benefited by inflating their follower totals.
[...] In May, a US district court found that Trump couldn't block Twitter users from following his account. Seven people sued the president for blocking them after they criticized or mocked him on Twitter, citing a violation of their First Amendment rights.
The president isn't the only high-profile tweeter to lose followers in the purge. Justin Bieber shed roughly 2.7 million followers; Rihanna dropped 605,000; Katy Perry lost 1.6 million; and Taylor Swift lost 2.3 million. Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, also lost followers, seeing a fall of 1.6 million.
The president's follower count can be tracked in real time on Social Blade.
(Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Friday July 13 2018, @07:08AM (6 children)
Trump "the tweeter-in-chief has lost 300,000 followers." vs Obama "Barack Obama, ..., seeing a fall of 1.6 million"
Obama is winning this one! Quick, do something!
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @07:30AM (2 children)
Or perhaps Obama's following was substantially more padded with bs accounts?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Friday July 13 2018, @08:42AM (1 child)
Or maybe the Trump followers had already been regularly purged :-)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 13 2018, @12:50PM
Yeah, nah, mate.
I reckon Twitter won't be able to match the rate of Russian bot accounts creation any time soon.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @03:00PM (2 children)
The "(grin)" is redundant if you do it in every single post you make you doof
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @03:58PM (1 child)
(grin)
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Friday July 13 2018, @06:43PM
(grin)(grin) --proper redundancy.
(Score: 2, Troll) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday July 13 2018, @07:21AM
it would be fascinating to break that total down into those who intend to vote for Cheeto in 2020, how many are like my friend Dave Johnson who tunes into Rush Limbaugh so he can find out what the Republicans are up to:
http://seeingtheforest.com [seeingtheforest.com]
... and how many know that its cruel to stare at people during their death throes yet find themselves so utterly fascinated that they just cant look away?
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by ledow on Friday July 13 2018, @07:23AM
So what?
Stephen Fry (a UK celebrity probably best-known for Blackadder and a handful of American TV cameos) lost 400k.
Does it mean anything? Not against the millions that remain.
And people give this stuff as if you have any control over who follows you on this kind of scale. It's not like he individually approved each follower, is it?
My friend is an author, he has tends of thousand of followers, including a couple of celebrities. Whenever there's a purge he loses 10% or so of his total. He's extremely aware of it, and often protests against manufactured-followings on there, and warns people of the bot-accounts and the social media places that will "sell" you followers. He doesn't USE any of them, he doesn't need to and there's no gain for him to do so, but he has thousands of bots follow him at any one time. Some of the accounts they use, you can spot a mile off... the same followers with the same fake details, following the same random accounts.
All it means is that Twitter does a really shit job at keeping bots off its platform, you can't use it to reflect on the people whose account it is. Presumably those bots are no different to anything else and are there to "crawl" Twitter and build a fake following over time so they can send out a one-time spam before getting blocked. And I hate trump and could quite well believe that he would buy followers like that. But you can't use a tiny percentage of his Twitter following to build an argument against him.
This is just spam-for-Twitter. If we're gonna measure that, I have one of the most popular email accounts and thousands of new followers every day. It's called my junk mail folder.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by isostatic on Friday July 13 2018, @07:28AM (21 children)
Less than 1%, that's not huge in anyone's book.
By comparison Clinton got 3 million more votes than Trump in 2016.
(Score: 2) by KritonK on Friday July 13 2018, @07:42AM
To put it in perspective, let's say that, instead of Trump's following, you have a millionth of that, i.e., a more reasonable 53 followers. A corresponding reduction would mean that you'd lose 0.3 followers, i.e., none!
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday July 13 2018, @11:12AM (2 children)
Gregg Phillips and crew say AT LEAST 3,000,000 votes were illegal. WE MUST DO BETTER!!!!!!!! insider.foxnews.com/2017/01/27/gregg-phillips-votestand-app-claims-have-proof-millions-illegal-votes [foxnews.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @12:28PM (1 child)
How do we know those illegal votes weren't for you?
(Score: 2, Troll) by realDonaldTrump on Friday July 13 2018, @03:16PM
It's the non-citizens. If they voted for me, that's VERY SPECIAL -- and a big surprise!!!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday July 13 2018, @12:00PM (16 children)
Yeah, that more than anything says to me that she needed to lose. If you can spend as much time around politicians as her and years as one yourself yet utterly fail to understand the mechanics of the game you're playing so badly that you get beat by Donald fucking Trump, you have no business whatsoever being the chief diplomat for the most powerful nation in the world.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Arik on Friday July 13 2018, @04:13PM (12 children)
The DNC got too clever and they screwed themselves. Bernie was always the best chance for a Democratic win, and they screwed that poor fool hard. And while they were thinking "no one can lose against Trump" they missed the stronger dynamic of "no one can lose against Clinton." Yeah, she had massive machine support in big cities like no one else, she could count on that. But she also had extremely high negatives with rural democrats, independents, swing voters; not just loyal Republicans. She was the living wagging nagging embodiment of everything negative about the establishment; normally that wouldn't matter so much because the RNC would normally advance a candidate of whom the exact same thing could be said, so everyone just holds their nose and votes their color.
She also thought that Bernie voters would have no choice but to back her. She was definitely wrong there. Bernie voters probably put him over the edge for several of the 304 votes he wound up with in the final tally.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @08:19PM (3 children)
Can confirm. Voted for Sanders in the primary and not Hillary in the general election. Did not vote for Trump either, because fuck reality TV and its ilk.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 13 2018, @09:51PM (2 children)
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @07:42AM (1 child)
If you're voting for the "lesser evil", you've already lost.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 14 2018, @08:31AM
Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 13 2018, @08:22PM (7 children)
The DNC deserved this loss, and I hope Clinton and Wasserman-Schultz end up in the same cell together. Sanders was our last chance, our one last chance, to pull out of this free-fall nosedive we're in. It's too late now. I felt the timeline snap in 2016. We're headed down the wrong leg of the trousers of time, AGAIN, and we're not gonna make it out of this one. A whole bunch of delicate, fragile, top-heavy institutions have just been fatally undermined.
Well, no surprise there. We all know what the ruling elite did to the last socialist Jew who said to be good to people...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 13 2018, @09:55PM
No, actually. Did something happen to Uri?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 14 2018, @12:14AM (5 children)
Damnit, every time I get to thinking you're utterly irredeemably hopeless, you go and use a pop culture reference that tells me you have at least some worthwhile qualities.
And what gives you the idea that hey, Seuss was a socialist? Charity and goodwill towards your fellow man have no need of government.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday July 14 2018, @08:34PM (4 children)
Go to Hell. You've declared war on humanity with that last journal of yours and I'm done dealing with you as if you were a sane, functioning human being. As your entire MO consists of "fuck you, got mine," I can only hope that in the near future you lose yours. Not, you understand, because I think you can be redeemed and learn a lesson from it; because you'll deserve it. And I'll watch your suffering not with joy, but with a grim satisfaction at seeing justice done.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @12:01AM (3 children)
On the contrary. I've declared war on those who would do evil and call it good. Committing theft via mob rule (which is exactly what government is, just with a suit on) is no more moral than doing it as an individual. Ditto many a liberty taken from us for the greater good.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 15 2018, @04:09AM (2 children)
Thank you for showing the precise shape of your madness in public for all to see.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday July 15 2018, @04:46AM (1 child)
You take issue with a point? Do be specific. What precisely did I say that is incorrect?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday July 15 2018, @02:21PM
"On the contrary. I've declared war on those who would do evil and call it good."
I suspect very strongly that you don't have a working meta-ethics, meaning your definitions of good and evil reduce *entirely* to t3h f33lz. Given how your complete worldview is just Kantian extensions of "fuck you, got mine," this is a logical assumption. And this being the case, you're too much of a moral Dunning-Kruger patient to see it :/
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 13 2018, @05:44PM (2 children)
yet utterly fail to understand the mechanics of the game
I'm pretty sure she understands that the rules are rigged to benefit the Republicans...
(Score: 2) by Arik on Friday July 13 2018, @10:03PM
So no, I'm afraid your snide comment isn't really justified or accurate. Not with that partisan slant. How about this.
"I'm pretty sure she understand that the rules are rigged to benefit the establishment."
Yeah, there we go, that salvages the truth of the statement, without the partisan spin.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday July 14 2018, @12:15AM
If that's what you need to get you to sleep at night, you go right ahead on thinking it. Just make sure and stock up on foil for hats on your next prepper run.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 13 2018, @10:17AM (5 children)
... when everyone's follower count is down to 0, and nobody is using the platform at all any more.
Then the toilet that is Twitter will have been flushed.
(Score: 3, Funny) by takyon on Friday July 13 2018, @10:22AM (1 child)
The tweets will still be archived by the Library of Congress so that future generations can marvel at the more sophistimicated discourse of the past.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 13 2018, @12:22PM
That will be quite the edumacation for them!
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday July 13 2018, @12:23PM
And nothing will be lost.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Friday July 13 2018, @01:22PM
MySpace isn't dead yet. Check the stats. Twitter will literally never die, even years after it no longer matters. Kind of like legacy broadcast TV, or newspapers... or brick and mortar department stores...
My wife was watching a crappy reality TV show (but I repeat myself) on Amazon Prime that was about a decade old and "trying to be cool" the people on the show were kissing up to their fabulous myspace fans and mentioning the bullying they got on myspace over some gameplay decisions and the host asked how the myspace bullying was affecting their lives, as if any of that shit mattered a decade ago or even less today. The "even less today" aspect is why my wife burst out laughing at the ridiculousness of it. It was some crappy yet mildly amusing reality TV show, I don't remember the details, just idly tuning around "hey remember..." type of thing.
In 2030 we're all gonna be nostalgic over "Remember that twitter thing from the turn of the century? I haven't heard about that in years. Still has two million people visiting per day."
(Score: 2) by bitstream on Saturday July 14 2018, @06:44PM
The twiolet cesspool being a cesspool. Who would have guessed? ;-)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Friday July 13 2018, @01:10PM
Its interesting to express financially, I was considering buying a shitload of followers for a family member as a practical joke, although I didn't go thru with it, research indicates Extremely hand wavy it costs maybe $15 per kilo-follower with VERY non-linear discounting such that a million followers is maybe $1000 to $2000 in bulk.
So... multi-millionaires losing the equivalent of hundreds, even a couple thousand dollars, is not a big deal.
Some of it kind of surprises me... tay tay (My daughter calls her tay tay, I donno anything else about it), being a hot blonde chick, would not seem to lack for male attention as a general rule, so whats up with the 2.3M fake accounts? ASSUMING she paid for them, thats a couple thousand bucks. Of course, if a million count of followers translates to social media buzz such that ticket prices can be increased 10% and still stuff the arena maybe it works out.
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Friday July 13 2018, @07:00PM
I have been reading A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, where the author describes this very trick. By changing the reported units, journalists can make insignificant events appear newsworthy.
Consider:
the tweeter-in-chief has lost 300,000 followers. The president now has 53.1 million followers
compared to
the tweeter-in-chief has lost 0.3 million followers. The president now has 53.1 million followers
Doesn't look so impressive any more.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday July 13 2018, @07:51PM
#FakeNews is sometimes about outright lying but that is actually rare. Lies work far better when they come in the form of misdirection, misrepresentation and misinterpretation. This story is an example of the more common lying. The President only lost a few followers compared to the other large accounts mentioned in the story itself. Yet what is the headline and lede? What is the message they are intending the reader take away from a story they didn't actually read but merely glanced at the clickbait headline and as quickly tweeted or posted to their Facebook followers? Is that intended message factual in any meaningful sense of the word?
And they do this daily, relentlessly, on almost every story you see reported in the mass media. The video is usually real, the people quoted actually said the quoted words. The bias and lies mostly come in the selection of which stories are "newsworthy" and the spin imparted on the story as it it woven into the larger Narrative. The events that move across the news wires are merely the raw material that is carefully spun and woven into an alternate reality to be pulled over the eyes of the ignorant. The good news is the ignorant are slowly waking up and realizing the great lie they have been sold these long decades is toxic. The legacy media is now about as popular as toe fungus and their reaction is to double down and call the fleeing readers and viewers names. Interesting times ahead.
What is hilarious is the biggest lie of them all is the one where these people have been held up, by each other of course, as the best, the global elite, a meritocratic aristocracy uniquely fit to rule the world, wise enough to be allowed to reshape it closer to their heart's desire. They now stand exposed. Clowns. Fools. Knaves. Criminals. Degenerates. Perverts. Inbred. Defective. Wicked.