#refugee from the twitter fiasco | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

novelmachine · 1 year

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Been looking for Twitter alternatives, and other social media sites in general. I'm on the waitlist for Bluesky. No idea when I'll see that, and I haven't heard much about it either. I signed up for CuriousCat for funsies, but I don't think it's what I was looking for. I likely won't use it much. Now on to the juicy stuff.

Last night I signed up for Threads and I already don't like it. Right now, there are zero ways to control your dashboard. Or much of anything, really. Just the basic functions of Instagram, but with words. I'll see one or two posts from people I follow before an endless stream of thoughts from people I don't know or care about. Seeing the 4,508,877th member badge on my Insta page, as it relates to Threads, just hammers home how we're all just pieces of data to get swallowed up by the conglomerate. Not even bothering to hide the fact that it's all a numbers game. The app itself is clunky, lacking soul and personality. It's so boring to look at. A lifeless machine, and all 30+ million users and growing are the franticly spinning cogs.

I've signed up for Pilowfort a little while ago and I like it so far. Its closer to Tumblr. Given that Tumblr is always on the brink of disappearing, it wouldn't hurt to have a back-up. There are posts for everyone to see that live on your blog, but there are also individual communities that act as forums. Posts can have individual comment sections, which I guess helps keep things on-topic. I'm going to slowly transition to cross-posting both old and new posts there. It seems promising, and the interactions I've had with other users thus far have been pleasant. I've already seen a few guides and helpful tips for the internet refugees.

Then there's Spoutible. It was touted as black-owned, having no algorithm, and having mods that handled hate speech and bigots swiftly and appropriately. Those are some green flags. They also have a cute little whale mascot, so all that combined had me. It is the closest to a Twitter clone I've come across so far. The interface is easy to understand and navigate. Posts are limited to 300 characters, and can include pictures, gifs, videos, and polls. There are a lot of safety measures for you to customize your experience to avoid malicious accounts. One being a rating system ranging from Normal to Problematic to help distinguish normies from bots. To post something is to "Spout Off." The trending topics page is titled "Making Waves." I like the vibes, and I believe this app has a lot of promise.

The truth is I've been kind of ambivalent to Twitter, even years before the Elon fiasco. When I first joined, it was for following my middle school and high school friends. After I graduated, those relationships fell off one by one. My dashboard morphed into a cascade of influencer updates and artist promotions. All I could offer was superficial consumption and meaningless life updates. Posting became a competition of who could be the funniest or who had the hottest take, and your whole psyche takes a hit when you just can't hack it. Maybe a restart was inevitable, and necessary for all of our sakes. I'll be taking Twitter off of my Linktree and other socials for the time being, and I don't see the point in linking any of these new socials until I've had enough time to play with them and figure things out.

TLDR: I'm not a tech genius. I simply operate on vibes. Bluesky is mysterious, more data needed. Threads is bloated and leans heavily on the algorithm. Pillowfort is a nice comfy space, just need to get used to it. Spoutible has potential and immaculate vibes.

#social media #pillowfort #threads #bluesky #spoutible #curious cat #hannah speaks

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eldritch-elrics · 1 year

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memes of 2022

[memes of 2021]

every year i am a little bit later with this. anyway, here’s my casual list of tumblr/twitter memes i saw in 2022 in my sphere of the internet, roughly in chronological order. i’ve almost certainly missed some (or described some of the ones that are here incorrectly/incoherently), but hopefully it’s fun to read anyway!

horse plinko

john lennon’s asscrack

blorbo from shows

the fall of urfaveisunfuckable

wordle scores

guy with big eyes

(megamind) no bitches?

i am in misery / i save dick by giving it cpr / reese's puffs

it’s me boy i’m the ps5

live slug reaction

my brother in christ

car battery dropping on jade from victorious

maidenless

homophobic dog

get drinked

tumblr blaze

tumblr crabs

ball shaving ads

debating the use of kung pow penis

elon musk buying twitter / twitter refugees on tumblr

misha collins coming out as straight

what would you do if i were a bug

video games characters at the mall

dracula daily

“hey i’m justin bieber” “and…?”

morbius

overwatch diversity chart

swedes not inviting friends to dinner

that’s why this pride month i’m partnering with x

x closed forever because a y threw up

mousegirl (nonsexual)

the lgbtq+ community has forgiven x

tumblr pikachu man

sometimes i wonder what i taste like

the final fantasy rp billboard

boris johnson resigning & ongoing uk fiasco (+ lettuce)

little guy dancing

oh look, the last ripe peach!

gougar

girl yelling in boy’s ear

circling a word in red and pointing to an image of something that sounds similar

reddit guy who fucks to cbat

modding your 3ds is easy

honestly [character] has been through so much more

gandalf big naturals

reigen winning twitter polls and then finally getting beaten by sans in tumblr sexyman contest

the queen of england dying immediately afterward (plus tons of other wild stuff)

the yaoi poll

holy fucking fuck that body of yours is absurd

drawing anime eyes with amongus guys

jesse pinkman's shirt when he goes through the most traumatic experience of his life

some fandom thing turning up in a random us city/state

tree guy

investing in posts

me listening to my completely unorganized playlist

hey don’t cry. x ok?

spirit halloween costumes

goncharov

i just got laid off from twitter, i was the person responsible for the feature where x

general twitter crashing and burning

koopas dancing

you don’t like trumpet? bwaa?

in an interview, wednesday star jenna ortega revealed…

bill clinton game awards kid (unfortunately)

hydrogen bomb vs coughing baby

cylinder dick guy

greta thunberg vs andrew tate

different types of cube designs

#memes 2022 #memes #2022 #my post #i think the only one here im forgetting is 'guy with big eyes' ... what does that mean

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pareidoliajules · 2 years

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I'd kind of thought that all the "people coming to tumblr from twitter" posts were like. Jokes, mostly?

But now it will, supposedly, cost $20 a month to be/stay verified. And I was told (but can't find receipts for) that if you're not verified, you're off the site. Whether or not this part is true, how many people are gonna pay $240/year for a stupid checkmark? Are celebrities? Politicians?

Where are all these people gonna go???? I knew this whole Musk/Twitter thing was gonna be a fiasco, but it's been...literally two days since he bought the company. This is ruination on speedrun.

Unbelievable. Welcome to the land of anti-verification, refugees, where everyone is nobody and we like it that way.

#news #twitter #this is gonna be S U C H. a shitshow.#this is NOT THE WAY to make back ur 44 billion dollars buddy!#i feel like someone said if every twitter user paid twenty bucks-- and he was like YOU KEEP TALKING

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strooples · 2 years

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Thinking about it, it’s actually quite surreal to be an “Instagram refugee” (let’s coin it that) who came back to Tumblr a month before the Twitter fiasco.

I don’t quite know how to feel after watching that, but it must suck for artists whose careers relied on the engagement they got there or anyone else who made friends on TW :(

But IG it’s hard for me to feel much, as bad as it is, cause I wasn’t a big Twitter fan.

I do have a kinda-bummed-out feeling after leaving Insta tho. It was hard to not burn out from multiple algorithm changes, a push for reels (alienating a huge amount of the user base that liked the formatting for images beforehand 😅) , and the whole website going so downhill with getting tied up in ads… it basically became one big shopping site lol. And for awhile, that sort of discouraged me from drawing, which was supposed to be fun.

Ads being everywhere kinda suck too.

#and ofc other personal stuff #like seeing ex friends and people who used to be your classmates #when you really don’t even interact with them anymore #and it’s like super super AWKWARD for everyone :/#but the final straw was losing a very cherished international friend #so yeah -#no more Insta for me #this Twitter thing tho feels absolutely nuts #my Number 1 Regret is definitely not saving all of my art and Insta story writings somewhere more tangible #they’re probably just gonna stay lost to the void forever LOL #thoughts

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transmissionsfromthebattlefield · 2 years

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Friend to Friend in Endtime

I’ve been watching the current Twitter fiasco from a distance. I never really liked the platform, because the character limit forces you to sloganize everything you say and reading threads just makes you feel either sad, angry, or condescended upon depending on the content. But I’m just not quite sure what to say seeing one of the most loathsome people in the world taking hold of it and treating it like a dumb playpen for his clueless man-child whims. It’s wild, to say the least.

A lot of people have been migrating to other sites, including Tumblr. I’ve seen mixed reactions about that, but honestly, I could care less what people use to whine about things on the internet. Besides, I’ve been sort of crossing my fingers for some sort of resurgence for blogging. Even though most of what I see on Tumblr is less actual blogging and more reposting pretty pictures and political opinions that have about a fifty-fifty chance of being the worst takes ever. Yeah, I do these things to a small extent, but hey, I like hearing what people have to say! It should be encouraged more.

Much of the overall sentiment I see in regards to the Twitter refugee thing is one that stands firmly against what the internet has become, i.e. social media. If you ask me, it pretty much all comes down to the incredibly potent force that is nostalgia. When it’s brewing and piping hot, there’s no room for constructive criticism of change. There’s just rejection and angst. I use Facebook enough to say that with abject certainty. I know plenty of people who critique social media and the internet in general on the regular while being aware that they rely on it for some of their most cherished connections. Twitter was the site of the Arab Spring, and it’s also a place for humans to just be human, and humans can be pretty stupid. It’s not all black and white, and there’s plenty of shades of gray to come by. It feels ironic to blindly screed against social media fakeness when you’re using your distaste solely to gain a pedestal and be a self-important, isolated martyr for a day. I hate this attitude, and it applies to the real world even more than it does to zeros and ones on a screen. Not every act has to be crafted into some perfect, radical expression of the personal-as-political for showy soapbox adventures. Sometimes, the least in-your-face acts can make the biggest waves. And sometimes, an act can just be an act, no matter what platform it happens on. It’s what you make of it.

The internet is stupid. Humans are stupid. We shouldn’t let belligerent overgrown babies lord over us while we nibble for useless trinkets. GO OUTSIIIIIIIIIDE.

#blog #the internet #Twitter #Twitter migration #social media #Tumblr #Facebook #blogging #ranting #get off the internet #go outside #touch grass #stupid

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schraubd · 5 years

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What's The Story on Trump's Antisemitic RJC Speech

Here are some highlights from the recent Republican Jewish Coalition conference, featuring a major speech by President Donald Trump.

He asked the attendees "How did you support President Obama, how did you support the Democrats?"

He also told them to explain his allegedly successful tariff policy "your people" who "don’t like tariffs."

An RJC twitter account spoke of one speaker's "Jew heritage" -- apparently favorably.

But the big eyebrow raiser was when he told attendees -- all American Jews -- that Netanyahu was "your Prime Minister". He then said that a Democratic victory in 2020 would leave Israel "all by yourselves."

This is not even the first time that Trump has told American Jews that Israel -- not America -- is "your" country. And given that we just spent however many weeks obsessing over "allegiance" and "Benjamins" -- indeed, given that groups like the RJC have insisted that we obsess over "allegiance" and "Benjamins" -- this seems like a big deal.

And to be fair, Jewish groups have not been silent. The AJC, ADL, and Israel Policy Forum all issued statements criticizing the President. The AJC was one of the first off the blocks, saying "the Prime Minister of Israel is the leader of his (or her) country, not ours. Statements to the contrary, from staunch friends or harsh critics, feed bigotry."). ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt criticized Trump for language "that leads people to believe Jews aren’t loyal Americans." The Orthodox group Torah Trumps Hate blasted "this antisemitic trope spewed by the president."

Individual Jewish figures also took note. Yair Rosenberg accused Trump of going "full dual loyalty". Batya Ungar-Sargon said the President's comments were "straight up anti-Semitic." Abe Foxman called out Trump's "dual loyalty tropes". Rep. Eliot Engel wryly observed that "I somehow doubt the president would say 'your Taoiseach' to a roomful of Irish-Americans."

But there still remains the question -- is this going to become a story?

What I said yesterday, I stand behind today: it is absolutely clear that Jews care about antisemitism of this sort when it comes from Trump or other elected Republicans. We don't give it a pass, we don't shrug it off. My tweet attacking Trump for saying Israel, not America, is my country is a 3,000 likes and counting (possibly my most-liked tweet ever).

Yesterday I said that the problem isn't that Jews don't care when Trump does antisemitic things. It's that nobody else does. We do express our concerns, but they're not amplified. The 1,000 microphones thrust in our face when Omar says "allegiance" disappear when Trump says "your Prime Minister".

Is that going to happen again? Some media sources have picked up on the antisemitism angle as something worth emphasizing. While JTA buried the lede (its current headline is "Trump gets hero’s welcome at Republican Jewish Coalition conference"; the "your country" bit is 9 paragraphs in and described as an "awkward moment"), others shone the spotlight where it belonged.

Haaretz ran the same body text as JTA but reheadlined the story "'Your Prime Minister Netanyahu': Watch Trump's Very Awkward Speech to American Jews" (subtitle: "At Republican Jewish conference, U.S. president mocked refugees, asked crowd to push for tariffs with 'your people' and seemed to suggest all Jews voted Obama"). Allison Kaplan Sommer filed her own piece "Calling Out Omar and Democrats' 'anti-Semitism,' Trump Pulls Jewish Dual Loyalty Trope."

The Times of Israel's story was "Trump tells US Jews that Netanyahu is 'your prime minister' (subtitle: "President also says Democrats would leave Israel 'out there by yourselves' in comments to Republican Jewish group; asks how they could back Obama, apparently referring to all Jews").

Outside the Jewish press, Business Insider wrote "Trump spoke to an audience of American Jews and referred to Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu as 'your prime minister'", and Slate ran with the similar "In Speech to Republican Jews, Trump Refers to Netanyahu as 'Your Prime Minister'".

So that suggests these remarks are getting coverage, and are getting coverage as an antisemitism case. Which is good. Because it should.

But what we haven't seen yet is the sort of secondary reporting that truly defines something becoming a story. Nobody, for example, has pressed the RJC's Matt Brooks or other prominent GOP figures to comment on Trump's remarks, or ask them if they think that Bibi is "their" Prime Minister. There haven't been headlines or stories which take for granted that this is a controversy or a crisis for the GOP and RJC -- nothing has yet run of the form "Trump, RJC on defensive after comments suggesting Jewish 'dual loyalty' to Israel". Nobody is pressing groups like the ADL as to whether they're in contact with the RJC or Trump and if there has been satisfactory progress to walk back the antisemitic valences of what Trump said. Indeed, there isn't yet even the call for an apology, let alone the feverish meta-commentary about what it means that no apology is forthcoming.

That's the big difference between how left and right antisemitism is covered. It isn't that the latter is ignored. It's that Jewish criticisms of the latter aren't amplified; they don't yield the multi-day meta-coverage and the demands for apologies and the calls for comment that requires everyone to take a stand and get placed in awkward and uncomfortable positions.

Some of that is due to Trump's unique property -- he's got so many scandals swirling about him at any given time that no individual one ever seems to stick for more than a half-second.

But this is clearly more than just a Trump phenomenon. And I'm not sure how to fix it. The claim is often said that we, the Jewish people, can't "let" this sort of unequal coverage and treatment persist. And yes, it's probably true that the Jewish media could do more to keep these stories afloat -- to treat them as stories, not just one-off "awkward moments" that get a day's comment and are forgotten.

Yet the fact is that it strikes me as unlikely that such efforts, even if expended, would gain traction unless they were matched by interest from the non-Jewish press -- and that I very much doubt is forthcoming.

For my part, a huge swath of the non-Jewish interest I've seen in this story centers almost exclusively around the "hypocrisy" charge -- Omar got raked over the coals for "allegiance" while Trump was supposedly met with "crickets." The problem is that (a) hypocrisy is a two-way street -- how many people in the former case were insisting that dual loyalty insinuations weren't a big deal or were just a big ol' smear? -- , (b) depending on the critic, hypocrisy can be an unfair charge insofar as it implies that Jews haven't been trying to call out Trump over this (see above to falsify that), and (c) the time spent on the meta-point of hypocrisy is energy taken away from the primary point of "Trump said something antisemitic," so it ends up diluting the narrative and ironically further entrenches the sense that Trump is taking less fire for a similar sin.

In any event, I may not have a solution, but I know what I want to see. I want to see journalists calling up Brooks and GOP congressmen and White House spokespersons (and the ADL and AJC, and Democratic officials and other liberal anti-racism and anti-antisemitism groups) and getting comment and keeping the story alive. I want headlines that are about the scandal and its continued fallout. I want pained discussions of the difficult position this is placing conservative figures, how they're struggling to grapple with how to forcefully denounce antisemitism while not cutting ties with a President still popular in his party, and what this signals for 2020. I want pieces about the huge blow the RJC conference struck against ongoing GOP efforts to attract Jewish voters -- what should have been a coming-out-party for Trump-supporting Republicans turned into a fiasco.

In short, I want journalists to treat Trump's antisemitism like a story.

We'll see if they do.

via The Debate Link http://bit.ly/2U2lE6P

#anti-semitism #Bibi Netanyahu #Donald Trump #Media

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bigbirdgladiator · 5 years

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* Chief of staff defends Doral G7 fiasco and own Ukraine remarks * Nancy Pelosi visits Jordan to discuss Turkey Syria incursionMick Mulvaney in his news conference at the White House on Thursday. Photograph: Michael Reynolds/EPASenior Trump administration officials were on Sunday scrambling to defend the president from escalating domestic and foreign policy scandals, ranging from impeachment proceedings in Washington to the US troop withdrawal in northern Syria.Acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was forced to row back comments he made earlier in the week acknowledging the administration withheld military aid to Ukraine in order to elicit assistance investigating Donald Trump’s political opponents.In a White House briefing on Thursday, Mulvaney listed “three issues” tied to the decision to withhold almost $400m in aid. These included “whether [Ukrainian officials] were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our Department of Justice” related to the origins of the inquiry into Russian interference in 2016 election, which Mulvaney linked to an unfounded conspiracy theory which says Ukraine was involved in the theft of emails from Democratic servers.Asked if that was tantamount to a quid pro quo, Mulvaney said: “We do that all the time with foreign policy.”Speaking to Fox News Sunday, Mulvaney claimed his words had been misreported, stating he had not acknowledged a quid pro quo.> That’s what people are saying that I said, but I didn’t say that> > Mick Mulvaney“That’s what people are saying that I said, but I didn’t say that,” he said.But he had clearly changed his line, now stating there were only “two reasons” aid was withheld: “rampant corruption in Ukraine” and “whether or not other nations, specifically European nations, were helping with foreign aid to the Ukraine”.The existence of a quid pro quo between Trump and Ukraine is at the centre of an impeachment inquiry led by Democrats in the House of Representatives.The committees involved are also investigating Trump’s request that the Ukrainain government commence an investigation into Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden. The president made the request during a 25 July phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.Mulvaney has denied that the Biden request was tied to the decision to withhold aid.The acting chief of staff is under the spotlight in the impeachment inquiry after testimony from a state department official, George Kent, placed him at the centre of efforts to create a separate diplomatic channel to Ukraine staffed by Trump loyalists including outgoing energy secretary Rick Perry and Trump’s personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.Democrats are weighing up whether to summon Mulvaney, according to reports.Reports also emerged on Sunday that Mulvaney was facing ejection from his post before the impeachment inquiry began. CNN reported that Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and other advisers began screening for new candidates last month.Mulvaney, a former South Carolina congressman, is the third White House chief of staff under Trump although he retains the “acting” prefix. He said on Sunday he had not considered tendering his resignation this week.“I’m very happy working there. Did I have the perfect press conference? No.” He said.The Ukraine scandal is only one of a number in which the administration is currently embroiled.On Saturday evening Trump was forced into an embarrassing climbdown, announcing his golf resort in Doral, Florida would no longer host the G7 summit next year following bi-partisan criticism of the decision.> At the end of the day he [Trump] still considers himself to be in the hospitality business> > Mick MulvaneyIn an attempt to defend the move, Mulvaney said: “At the end of the day he [Trump] still considers himself to be in the hospitality business.”The administration is also reeling from bipartisan criticism of its decision to withdraw troops from northern Syria.On Sunday, secretary of state Mike Pompeo sought to defend a fragile and brief ceasefire brokered with Turkey, which he described as “the outcome that President Trump sent us to achieve”.The US and Turkey reached an agreement on Thursday to halt Turkish operations against Kurdish forces for five days to allow military and civilians to evacuate an area of land around the border about 20 miles deep, before the territory is claimed by Turkey.An American soldier mounts the US flag on a vehicle near the town of Tel Tamr in northern Syria. Photograph: Baderkhan Ahmad/APBoth sides have accused the other of violating the agreement. Republicans and Democrats in Washington argue the deal has undermined US interests in the region and delivered a significant victory to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.Pompeo, also at the centre of the Ukraine scandal, distanced himself from such criticisms during an interview with ABC’s This Week, when asked if the Turkish government had been handed everything it had asked for.“I was there. It sure didn’t feel that way when we were negotiating,” Pompeo said. “It was a hard-fought negotiation. It began before the vice-president and I even arrived in Ankara.”Trump chimed in on Twitter, quoting his defense secretary on how “the ceasefire is holding up very nicely”. In his first version of the tweet, the president typed Mark Esper’s name as Mark Esperanto.Later on Sunday he returned to the subject of impeachment, tweeting that the Ukraine whistleblower was a “fraud, just like the Russia Hoax”.> ....fiction to Congress and the American People? I demand his deposition. He is a fraud, just like the Russia Hoax was, and the Ukraine Hoax is now. When do the Do Nothing Democrats pay a price for what they are doing to our Country, & when do the Republicans finally fight back?> > — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2019Over the weekend, Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi led a bipartisan delegation to Jordan to discuss the fallout of Trump’s troop withdrawal.“Our bipartisan delegation is visiting Jordan at a critical time for the security and stability of the region,” Pelosi’s office said in a statement released on Saturday.“With the deepening crisis in Syria after Turkey’s incursion, our delegation has engaged in vital discussions about the impact to regional stability, increased flow of refugees, and the dangerous opening that has been provided to Isis, Iran and Russia.”Despite the chaos over US Syria policy, one of Trump’s most ardent supporters in the Senate seemed to have abandoned his previously stringent criticism.Speaking to Fox News, Lindsey Graham said he was “increasingly optimistic that we can have some historic solutions in Syria that have eluded us for years if we play our cards right”.

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deanpasch · 6 years

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Be Loving - Be Open - Keep the Borders Open

The world is sorting itself out.

There are the mean, nasty, ungenerous bastards and there are the open, generous, optimistic bastards. It can be explored as totalitarianism versus its opposite - it can be explored as western democracy versus the rest - it can be explored but for me it amounts mostly to fear or hope, meanness of spirit or love.

This wave of xenophobia - defined by 'this is my land so stay the fuck out unless you have a legal right to enter' - this attitude gives me the creeps. It hasn't defined anything of any substance in the last 10 thousand + years.

For very wealthy nation states to shirk all responsibility for the refugee and migration phenomenon that is taking place today is utter crap. Why are so many people on the move? We all deep down know the answer to that one. And we react either with compassion, awareness and constructive attempts to deal with this or we say - "fuck off - it's not my problem. And then go on to blame politicians and then in worst case scenario elect people who apparently aren't politicians but rather down to earth people who can solve the problems. Well they can't and don't and won't.

Fascism is trying to take root in many places and it won't work because at some point enough is enough already. Take the young child on the beach (dead) or the current separation of 'innocent' children from 'criminal' parent fiasco in the USA.

Trump is a fascist. He is a moron. He is a deadly plague in the world's attempt to deal with challenge and he surrounds himself with a pool of morons and venal insults to our intelligence. Jeff Sessions as Attorney General - please give me a break. He's a cartoon character ready to be eliminated by a daffy duck who fucking hates the way he (Sessions) is so damn stupid. Citing the Bible is as bad as saying any religion should define and dictate state policy. It's dumb. And in the context he was doing so - it is inhumane and shows he has as much in common with the Christian faith as a smelly fart has with pleasant aroma.

Fuck Trump (as one says) - and all those who condone his actions, apparent sentences (words in a twitter) and etc.

Onward and striving for a better world for all - not this or that country great (apparently) for itself.

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mystlnewsonline · 6 years

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New Post has been published on https://www.stl.news/trust-truth-under-trump-americans-quandary/67572/

Trust and truth under Trump: Americans are in a quandary

RALEIGH, N.C./January 14, 2018 (AP)(STL.News) —When truck driver Chris Gromek wants to know what’s really going on in Washington, he scans the internet and satellite radio. He no longer flips TV channels because networks such as Fox News and MSNBC deliver conflicting accounts tainted by politics, he says.

“Where is the truth?” asks the 47-year-old North Carolina resident.

Answering that question accurately is a cornerstone of any functioning democracy, according to none other than Thomas Jefferson. But a year into Donald Trump’s fact-bending, media-bashing presidency, Americans are increasingly confused about who can be trusted to tell them reliably what their government and their commander in chief are doing.

Interviews across the polarized country as well as polling from Trump’s first year suggest people seek out various outlets of information, including Trump’s Twitter account, and trust none in particular.

Many say that practice is a new, Trump-era phenomenon in their lives as the president and the media he denigrates as “fake news” fight to be seen as the more credible source.

“It has made me take every story with a large grain, a block of salt,” said Lori Viars, a Christian conservative activist in Lebanon, Ohio, who gets her news from Fox and CNN. “Not just from liberal sources. I’ve seen conservative ‘fake news.'”

Democrat Kathy Tibbits of Tahlequah, Oklahoma, reads lots of news sources as she tries to assess the accuracy of what Trump is reported to have said.

“I kind of think the whole frontier has changed,” said the 60-year-old lawyer and artist. “My degree is in political science, and they never gave us a class on such fiasco politics.”

Though Trump’s habit of warping facts has had an impact, it’s not just him.

Widely shared falsehoods have snagged the attention of world leaders such as Pope Francis and former President Barack Obama. Last year, false conspiracy theories led a North Carolina man to bring a gun into a pizza parlor in the nation’s capital, convinced that the restaurant was concealing a child prostitution ring. Just last week, after the publication of an unflattering book about Trump’s presidency, a tweet claiming that he is addicted to a TV show about gorillas went viral and prompted its apparent author to clarify that it was a joke.

Trump has done his part to blur the lines between real and not.

During the campaign, he made a practice of singling out for ridicule reporters covering his raucous rallies. As president, he regularly complains about his news coverage and has attacked news outlets and journalists as “failing” and “fake news.” He’s repeatedly called reporters “the enemy of the people” and recently renewed calls to make it easier to sue for defamation.

About 2 in 3 American adults say fabricated news stories cause a great deal of confusion about the basic facts of current affairs, according to a Pew Research Center report last month. The survey found that Republicans and Democrats are about equally likely to say that “fake news” leaves Americans deeply confused about current events. Despite the concern, more than 8 in 10 feel very or somewhat confident that they can recognize news that is fabricated, the survey found.

Victoria Steel, 50, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, said it’s important for people to invest time in finding reputable media sources or even friends to get the most information they can.

“You’re probably not going to get enough information out of sound bites, and you’re certainly not going to get it in a tweet,” said Steel, who says she voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016.

Two-thirds of Americans get at least some of their news from social media, Pew found.

“I think part of the problem is that now people are getting too much information and it confuses them and they don’t know how to decipher the true and the fake,” said Trent Lott, a former Senate Republican leader from Mississippi who’s worked in Washington for nearly half a century. He isn’t fond of Trump’s Twitter habit, but also says he sees bias in the coverage of Washington by the mainstream media.

There’s been no love for the media for decades. The percentage expressing a great deal of confidence in the press has eroded from a high of 28 percent in 1976 to just 8 percent in 2016, according the General Social Survey conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago.

“Trump didn’t invent this. He didn’t cause people to start feeling this way. He’s tapping into a vein that already existed,” said Gary Abernathy, publisher and editor of the Times-Gazette of Hillsboro, Ohio, one of the few daily papers that endorsed Trump. People, he added, “are nodding their heads right away because that’s how they’ve felt.”

Nicco Mele, director of the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard, views Trump as a symptom of long-term trends. “Now, can he accelerate them and make them worse? Almost certainly.”

When Trump labels something “fake news,” ”I just have started assuming … whatever he’s talking about must be true,” said 46-year-old Joseph Murray of Mustang, Oklahoma, a registered independent. “I feel like that attitude didn’t start until he took office.”

Trump tends to inflate the significance of what he’s done. He claims his tax cuts are the biggest in history, his accomplishments surpass those of all previous presidents, and his election victory was a “landslide.” None is true.

He still insists there were millions of illegal votes cast in the 2016 election, even though there’s no such evidence.

Even on matters existential, Trump makes things up.

Taunted on Twitter by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Trump responded Jan. 3 that his own nuclear button “is a much bigger and powerful one than his, and my Button works!” There is no such physical button.

Trump often bypasses the vast information-gathering apparatus that reports to him in favor of getting his reality from TV, or sometimes just his gut. That has led him to conclude wrongly that a rare riot in Sweden over a drug crime was instead linked to refugee extremism. He also falsely claimed that Obama tapped his phones at Trump Tower in the campaign.

“I’m a very instinctual person, but my instinct turns out to be right,” he told Time magazine. Besides, “I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks.”

___

Kellman reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Dan Sewell in Cincinnati, Claudia Lauer in Dallas, Bob Moen in Cheyenne, Wyoming, and Calvin Woodward in Washington contributed to this report.

By LAURIE KELLMAN and JONATHAN DREW, by Associated Press – published on STL.News by St. Louis Media, LLC (Z.S)

___Pew Re

#Americans #Donald Trump #illegal votes cast #North Carolina #Pew Research center #Trust

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touristguidebuzz · 7 years

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Bahamas Tourism Officials Separate Themselves Further From Fyre Festival Fiasco

Tents and a portable toilet set up for attendees for the Fyre Festival in the Exuma islands, Bahamas. Organizers of the much-hyped music festival in the Bahamas canceled the weekend event at the last minute Friday after many people had already arrived and spent thousands of dollars on tickets and travel. Jake Strang / Associated Press

Skift Take: First-time event planners mixed with Instagram influencers and poor infrastructure never add up to a successful gathering — no matter where it is.

— Jason Clampet

In this day and age, the young and beautiful live and die on social media.

And it’s been a sudden and ugly death for the ill-fated Fyre Festival, a multiday music, art and culture party that promised “an invitation to let loose and unplug with the likeminded” on the Bahamian island of Exuma.

The festival’s rise and fall has played out in real time on YouTube and filtered through Facebook, where would-be party goers are putting their anger on display. Instead of photos of boozy good times, people have posted pictures of rows of white tents that look like “Stormtrooper helmets,” blue port-a-potties near half-constructed plywood structures and limp, lifeless cheese sandwiches.

Organizers canceled the event at the last minute after poor planning, disorganization and lack of accommodations. Most of the A-list acts had pulled out days before, saying they hadn’t been paid.

It was supposed to be a sun-soaked experience filled with yachts, gourmet food and models. Ticket prices ranged from $500 to $12,000.

But by Saturday morning, the partygoers had decamped, many of them to hotels in Miami in hopes of salvaging a weekend. People decried the festival accommodations as being like a “disaster tent city” and a “refugee camp.”

The Bahamas Ministry of Tourism says it’s deeply disappointed.

“Hundreds of visitors to Exuma were met with total disorganization and chaos,” the tourism office wrote in a statement to the media.

Fyre Festival co-organizer Billy McFarland promised full refunds on the festival’s website Saturday.

“We will be working on refunds over the next few days and will be in touch directly with guests with more details. Also, all guests from this year will have free VIP passes to next year’s festival,” he wrote.

The hype began months ago, marketed with slick videos on social media.

“I saw it on Instagram and booked it before the lineup was announced,” said Mitch Purgason, a 25-year-old bespoke menswear designer in Charlotte, North Carolina.

The Instagram ads looked especially “ridiculous” — parlance for amazing — what with models like Gigi Hadid and rapper Ja Rule. Blink-182 was supposed to perform. Photos of the impossibly blue water and the sugary sandy beach looked incredible. What’s more: Wild, docile pigs lived on the beach and swam in the warm water, perfect props for a killer Instagram selfie.

Although the festival on the island chain east of Florida appeared to cater to the Millennial trust fund crowd, it was people like Purgason and 29-year-old Jake Strang of Pittsburgh who purchased early tickets — young professionals who wanted to spend a fun weekend in the tropics.

Both men paid $500 for a flight from Miami to the island along with lodging and food. Strang and seven of his friends planned the trip to coincide with a birthday. They reserved a “lodge” for eight, with four king beds and a seating area in the middle.

“Everything made it look amazing,” said Strang.

The festival website promised a treasure hunt of “exceptional proportions,” with more than $1 million in riches to be found on a private island.

Purgason said he was skeptical, but planned the vacation anyway.

“Worst case scenario, I figured, we’re still in the Bahamas in a villa.”

His first inkling something was amiss came on Thursday morning, after the first flight from Miami to Exuma. Organizers said the villas weren’t ready, so they whisked the planeload of partygoers to a restaurant at a nearby resort.

It wasn’t a private island at all, but food and drink were free and plenty. Cute pigs and bikini-clad girls roamed the beach. There was a DJ.

“They actually treated us pretty well,” he said. “The first three hours was dope.”

Jenna Conlin, 30, an advertising professional from Venice, California, said, “They were putting down bottles of tequila on every table in an attempt to make everybody happy.”

Strang flew in later Thursday and wasn’t so lucky.

“When we arrived, it essentially looked like a construction site. It looked like they were trying to sell lots for homes,” he said.

A promoter told festival goers to find tents and waved his arm in a direction. But the tents had holes that had obviously allowed rain to come in, because the beds were wet. They were given a Styrofoam container of food: “two slices of ham, lettuce and one slice of cheese on soggy bread,” Strang said.

A few lucky patrons had been relocated to resorts. Most had to find beds in the tents. Available rooms aren’t easy to grab on Exuma, a small island with a population of about 7,000 that lacks the well-developed tourist infrastructure of Nassau or Freeport.

The island’s hotels were already booked months in advance for a well-known regatta, wrote Robert Carron, owner of the Bahamas Tribune newspaper.

By daybreak, people were already lining up to complain, and buses began returning them to the airport. Soon, it was official: The festival was cancelled.

Word got out via social media that organizers said “circumstances out of our control” prevented them from preparing the “physical infrastructure” necessary for the event on the largely undeveloped island.

“I’m heartbroken at this moment,” Ja Rule, whose real name is Jeffrey Atkins, said on Twitter. “I wanted this to be an amazing event. It was not a scam as everyone is reporting. I truly apologize as this is NOT MY FAULT.”

http://pic.twitter.com/KuJYxfsQJ4

— Ja Rule (@Ruleyork) April 28, 2017

This article was written by Tamara Lush from The Associated Press and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network. Please direct all licensing questions to [email protected].

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viralhottopics · 7 years

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CEO Travis Kalanick resigns from Trump’s advisory board after #DeleteUber fiasco

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick.

Image: mike windle/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

UPDATED 4:15 p.m. PT with CEO Travis Kalanick’s memo to Uber staff.

#DeleteUber may have actually forced something to change at Uber.

Uber CEO Travis Kalanick will step down from President Donald Trump’s economic advisory council, he told Uber employees in an email Thursday.

Earlier today I spoke briefly with the president about the immigration executive order and its issues for our community, Kalanick wrote, according to an email obtained by Mashable. I also let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the president or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.

SEE ALSO: Uber fights against #DeleteUber hashtag with targeted ads

Criticism against the company reached a fever pitch last weekend, when thousands of users contacted Uber to delete their accounts as a campaign to #DeleteUber spread across social media.

The outcry ignited when Uber tweeted that it would not apply surge pricing at John F. Kennedy International Airport while New York City taxi drivers were striking at the airport. Many interpreted that move by Uber as breaking the taxi drivers’ strike, which was in protest of Trump’s travel and immigration ban for people from seven Muslim-majority countries.

#DeleteUber got so out of control that Uber had to automate its once-manual account deletion process.

SEE ALSO: Apple, Uber, Netflix, Twitter join corporate rebuke of Trump immigration policy

The surge pricing announcement, coupled with Kalanick’s role on Trump’s advisory council, caused many Uber users or former users to associate the company with Trump. Kalanick was one of several business leaders on the advisory council, along with Tesla founder Elon Musk who, at time of writing, remained part of it.

Kalanick defended his role advising the Trump administration last week at an “all hands” meeting with staff.

“We’ll partner with anyone in the world as long they’re about making transportation in cities better, creating job opportunities, making it easier to get around, getting pollution out of the air and traffic off the streets,” Kalanick told employees, according to CNN.

“It’s about the leaders we have to work with around the world, not just here in the United States but everywhere,” Kalanick said.

Read Kalanick’s memo in full:

Dear Team,

Earlier today I spoke briefly with the President about the immigration executive order and its issues for our community. I also let him know that I would not be able to participate on his economic council. Joining the group was not meant to be an endorsement of the President or his agenda but unfortunately it has been misinterpreted to be exactly that.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this and mapping it to our values. There are a couple that are particularly relevant:

Inside Out– The implicit assumption that Uber (or I) was somehow endorsing the Administrations agenda has created a perception-reality gap between who people think we are, and who we actually are.

Just Change– We must believe that the actions we take ultimately move the ball forward. There are many ways we will continue to advocate for just change on immigration but staying on the council was going to get in the way of that.The executive order is hurting many people in communities all across America. Families are being separated, people are stranded overseas and theres a growing fear the U.S. is no longer a place that welcomes immigrants.

Immigration and openness to refugees is an important part of our countrys success and quite honestly to Ubers. I am incredibly proud to work directly with people like Thuan and Emil, both of whom were refugees who came here to build a better life for themselves. I know it has been a tough week for many of you and your families, as well as many thousands of drivers whose stories are heartfelt and heart-wrenching.

Please know, your questions and storieson Tuesday, along with what I heard from drivers, have kept me resilient and reminded me of one of our most essential cultural values, Be Yourself. We will fight for the rights of immigrants in our communities so that each of us can be who we are with optimism and hope for the future.

BONUS: All 13 times the stars at the SAG Awards threw shade at Donald Trump