Social media

Subterms

    More stories

    • 88 Shares149 Views

      in Elections

      Here’s Why We Shouldn’t Demean Trump Voters

      by

      Some of the best advice Democrats have received recently came from Bill Clinton in his speech at the Democratic National Convention.First, he warned against hubris: “We’ve seen more than one election slip away from us when we thought it couldn’t happen, when people got distracted by phony issues or overconfident.” That’s something that any Clinton understands in his — or her — gut.Second, related and even more important, he cautioned against demeaning voters who don’t share liberal values.“I urge you to meet people where they are,” said Clinton, who knows something about winning votes outside of solid blue states. “I urge you not to demean them, but not to pretend you don’t disagree with them if you do. Treat them with respect — just the way you’d like them to treat you.”That’s critical counsel because too often since 2016, the liberal impulse has been to demonize anyone at all sympathetic to Donald Trump as a racist and bigot. This has been politically foolish, for it’s difficult to win votes from people you’re disparaging.It has also seemed to me morally offensive, particularly when well-educated and successful elites are scorning disadvantaged, working-class Americans who have been left behind economically and socially and in many cases are dying young. They deserve empathy, not insults.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump takes sexist Harris attacks to ‘whole other level’ on Truth Social

      by

      Donald Trump has reposted a crudely misogynistic comment about Kamala Harris on Truth Social in a move that reprised his past record of sexist behaviour and brazenly flouted pleas from members of his own party to emphasize issues over personal attacks.With fresh polls showing Harris further improving her standing – and widening the gap with her opponent among women voters – Trump drew online opprobrium by sharing a vulgar post on his social media site implying that the Democratic nominee owed her political rise to sexual favours.The post – originally posted by another user – featured photos of Harris and Hillary Clinton alongside the comment: “Funny how blowjobs impacted both their careers differently…”The comment was an oblique reference to innuendo surrounding Harris’s former relationship with Willie Brown, the San Francisco mayor. The mention of Clinton – Trump’s defeated opponent in the 2016 presidential election – alluded to the affair between Monica Lewinsky, a former White House intern, and her husband Bill Clinton in the 1990s, which came close to ending his presidency.It was not the first time Trump had made lewd references to Harris. On 18 August, he shared a video by the Dilley Meme Team, a group of rightwing content creators, to the soundtrack of a parody of the Alanis Morrisette song Ironic that contained the lines, “She spent her whole damn life down on her knees”, as an image of Brown appeared behind a picture of the US vice-president and her husband, Doug Emhoff.But the latest post appeared among a flurry of other extreme posts on Wednesday that also included tributes to the QAnon conspiracy theory that holds that Trump is waging war against an elite network of Satan-worshipping pedophiles in government, business and the media.He reposted: “WWG1WGA! RETRUTH IF YOU AGREE.” The acronym is short for the QAnon slogan: “where we go one, we go all.” He similarly reposted another QAnon phrase: “nothing can stop what is coming.”The FBI has previously identified fringe theories like QAnon – which Trump has stopped short of endorsing while praising its supporters – as likely to fuel domestic terrorism.In yet another incendiary communication, Trump posted manipulated images of some of his favourite targets – including the entrepreneur Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, who spearheaded the US vaccine effort against Covid-19, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi – imprisoned and wearing orange jumpsuits.The Harris campaign made no immediate response to Trump’s latest burst of social media activity, which followed disclosures of an altercation between his campaign team and staff at Arlington national cemetery, the resting place of fallen US military heroes, during a visit on Monday.However, the CNN host Anderson Cooper – in a lengthy segment – said the posts took Trump’s previous campaigning to a “whole other level”.“This is the Republican candidate for president and the 45th president of the United States, talking about two women who, no matter what you think of their politics, are two of the most accomplished women in American political history,” Cooper said.Wednesday’s online outbursts came as a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Harris with a four-point nationwide lead, 45% to 41%, over Trump. Among women, the survey showed the vice-president increasing her lead to 13%, compared with an average of 9% in polls for July.A separate Fox News survey showed Harris leading or increasing her support in four southern Sun belt states, all considered vital battlegrounds in November.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a two-way race, Harris was up by one point in Arizona and by two points in Georgia and Nevada, while Trump is ahead by one point in North Carolina, according to the poll.Beyond the polls, there was irritation among Republicans strategists who had previously urged Trump to desist from attacking Harris personally and focus on issues of concern to voters, such as the economy, inflation and immigration.“I think people are incredibly frustrated,” Jason Roe, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican party, told the Washington Post.He said Harris’s campaign and policy stances gave “opportunities for the Trump campaign to talk about issues that actually will matter to swing voters. And rather than doing that, he’s delving into this nonsense.”Stuart Stevens, a member of the anti-Trump Republican group, the Lincoln Project, and a strategist for Mitt Romney’s failed 2012 presidential bid, challenged widespread predictions of a close election by suggesting that Trump’s approach would eventually alienate voters and enable Harris to win convincingly.“There’s been a lot of talk – it’s sort of a universal truth – that this election is going to be close,” he told CNN. “I have a different opinion. I think it’ll be close till about October 20th, and then I think it’s going to be like Carter versus Reagan [in 1980, when Reagan won in a landslide], that the bottom is going to start to drop out [of Trump’s campaign].“I think this is going to be a race that Democrats are going to win by more than Biden did,” he added. More

    • 88 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Brazil Threatens to Ban Elon Musk’s X

      by

      The country’s Supreme Court gave the service 24 hours to name a legal representative in Brazil or face suspension.Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday gave Elon Musk 24 hours to name a legal representative for X in Brazil or face a ban of his social network across the nation of 200 million.Mr. Musk closed X’s office in Brazil last week in protest of orders from a Brazilian Supreme Court justice to suspend certain accounts. If X refuses to comply, it could lose access to one of its largest markets outside the United States — a blow as the company struggles to regain revenue after Mr. Musk battled with advertisers and told them not to spend on the platform.The court posted its order on X on Wednesday night, suggesting that Mr. Musk had until about 8 p.m. local time Thursday to respond.The moment is one of the biggest tests yet for Mr. Musk’s efforts to mold X to his personal ideology, and how he responds will shed light on how far he is willing to take his stated commitment to protecting his social network from what he calls censorship.X and Mr. Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the possible ban.Mr. Musk has been enmeshed in a monthslong feud with Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice whom he has accused of censoring conservative voices online. Justice Moraes has ordered the suspension of more than 100 X accounts in what he says is a battle against misinformation, hate speech and attacks on democracy.Most of the accounts that Justice Moraes has targeted belong to right-wing supporters of Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s former president. Some of them questioned Mr. Bolsonaro’s 2022 election loss and sympathized with protesters who raided Brazil’s halls of power, hoping to invoke a military takeover.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Telegram’s Top Executive Pavel Durov Reportedly Detained in France

      by

      The founder of Telegram, an app with more than 900 million users, was taken into custody by the authorities, French media reported.The French authorities on Saturday detained Pavel Durov, the top executive of the online communications platform Telegram, on charges related to the spread of illicit material on the service, according to French news reports.Mr. Durov, 39, a Russian-born entrepreneur, was reportedly arrested at Le Bourget Airport near Paris after landing from Azerbaijan. His detention could not immediately be confirmed.The Russian Embassy in France said in a statement on Sunday that it had asked the French authorities for clarification on news of the arrest.Representatives of the French police and Interior Ministry declined to comment and redirected questions to the Paris prosecutor’s office. The Paris prosecutor’s office, citing an open investigation, also declined to comment.Telegram did not respond to requests for comment.In an interview on Telegram, George Lobushkin, a former press secretary for Mr. Durov who remains close to him, wrote, “This is a monstrous attack on freedom of speech worldwide.”Telegram, with more than 900 million users, has long been on the radar of law enforcement agencies around the world because terrorist organizations, drug runners, weapons dealers and far-right extremist groups have used it for communicating, recruiting and organizing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares139 Views

      in Elections

      Ronda Rousey Apologizes for Reposting Sandy Hook Conspiracy Video

      by

      The former U.F.C. star apologized after Reddit users asked her about the video she shared 11 years ago. She called it “the single most regrettable decision of my life.”The former mixed martial arts superstar and professional wrestler Ronda Rousey apologized on Friday for reposting a video in 2013 that spread conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting, calling it “the single most regrettable decision of my life.”Ms. Rousey, who was one of the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s biggest stars, explained in her apology that she “watched a Sandy Hook conspiracy video and reposted it on twitter.”Ms. Rousey said the news media never asked her about the post, which has since been deleted. She said she considered apologizing for it many times, including in her memoir, but worried that doing so might “lead more people down the black hole” of conspiracies.“I deserve to be hated, labeled, detested, resented and worse for it,” she said in her apology, adding, “I apologize that this came 11 years too late.”Ms. Rousey’s apology came days after she hosted a Q. and A. session on Reddit.A user asked her if she should apologize for “sharing a video that you called ‘must-watch’ and ‘interesting’ that had claimed the Sandy Hook School Massacre was part of a government conspiracy.” Other users also asked about her old post.On Dec. 14, 2012, a 20-year-old man armed with semiautomatic pistols and a semiautomatic rifle walked into the school in Newtown, Conn., and killed 26 people, 20 of them children.In the years since, false conspiracy theories about the event have proliferated on the internet.In 2018, relatives of Sandy Hook victims sued Alex Jones, a media personality who spread conspiracy theories about the shooting through his company Infowars, for defamation. They were awarded more than $1.4 billion in damages, though what the families might receive is unclear as further legal battles drag on.In a post dated Jan. 15, 2013, Ms. Rousey wrote, “asking questions and doing research is more patriotic than blindly accepting what you’re told,” apparently in response to backlash she received about the video she had shared, according to a 2013 article on Bleacher Report, a sports news website.A 2013 analysis in The Huffington Post said the video, which appears to have been removed from YouTube, made a variety of false claims, including that some of the people in the school were paid actors.A lawyer and agents representing Ms. Rousey did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Saturday.Her apology has been viewed more than seven million times, and has received more than 2,000 comments, many of which appear to be supportive.In 2018, Ms. Rousey became the first woman to be inducted into the U.F.C. Hall of Fame. She also won a bronze medal at the 2008 Olympics in middleweight judo and for years was one of the biggest stars for WWE. More

    • 175 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘Brat, what’s that?’: Harris’s meme fame (sort of) makes its way to the DNC

      by

      Six hours and 26 minutes after Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris to be the Democratic presidential nominee, a three-word tweet upended the presidential race.“Kamala IS brat,” singer Charli xcx tweeted.The British pop star’s tweet wasn’t just referencing her album, brat – already the soundtrack of the summer – but merely adding to the viral cacophony of mashup videos that featured Harris laughing and dancing to songs from her album.It was also a larger exaltation of Harris’s personality. Being “brat”, according to Charli xcx, is “just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes, who feels herself, but then also maybe has a breakdown, but kind of parties through it”.Put another way, “the brat girl is authentic and unabashed, wholly herself, says what she thinks, means what she says, can’t be shamed because she owns all of her messiness, awkwardness, shortcomings”, said Abigail De Kosnik, a professor at the Center for New Media at the University of California, Berkeley.“Harris has long come across in interviews and social media videos as real and very much herself, unafraid to laugh loud and dance in public, proud to geek out and be weird about things she loves (Venn diagrams, her campaign buses), so she has never been invested in being or seeming ‘perfect’,” she said.The meme exploded on Twitter, TikTok and beyond, helping the Harris campaign engage younger voters – a critical demographic. The Harris campaign immediately embraced the meme, changing the background of its rapid response account on Twitter to match the chartreuse album cover with its plain font.The Guardian asked some attendees at the Democratic convention whether they had heard of the meme.“Brat? What’s that?” said Pamela Cleveland, 60, who had travelled up to Chicago all the way from Temple, Texas. “I don’t know what brat is, though I’ve been hearing it a lot recently.”Her friend and travelling companion, Sharon Rose, 66, was equally bemused: “I’ve been hearing that it’s something cool, but I don’t know why.”After the Guardian gave one explanation of brat as slightly messy, strong, street smart and authentically real, both faces lit up.“Then Kamala is definitely brat,” exclaimed Cleveland. “She’s relatable, people of all races and nationalities can relate to her. It makes sense.”Harold Love, a Democrat who represents Nashville in the Tennessee legislature, told the Guardian he also hadn’t heard of the meme.“I haven’t seen that,” he said on the floor of the Democratic convention Monday evening. “I don’t know what that means.”Raumesh Akbari, the Democratic leader in the Tennessee state senate and a self-described “geriatric millennial”, said she had learned the term recently.“Kamala is brat,” she said. “I’m like, OK, Charli, I get it, I get it. I understand what it means. I need to get a button, I’ve seen them around.”Priya Sundareshan, an Arizona state senator who just turned 40, was wearing lime-green shoes to signify brat.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“I’m a little too old for that, but I heard about it and that’s why I wear these lime-green shoes, because apparently that is the colour of brat!” she said with a laugh.Asked whether brat signifies that Harris has a strong connection with young voters, Sundareshan replied: “Absolutely. I know we’ve seen that with the gen Z and millennial influencers who have come out in support and are spreading the message. Kamala is definitely #brat and I’m a young cool kid, yeah!”The Guardian attempted to approach Greta Gerwig, the Barbie director, on the convention floor Monday evening to ask her whether Kamala was brat.“No, sorry, she can’t talk,” an assistant said before a Guardian reporter could pose the question.An effort to inquire with Amy Klobuchar, the Democratic senator from Minnesota, was also unsuccessful.“I’m not doing interviews,” Klobuchar said.Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at Syracuse University who has studied social media and presidential campaigns, said that it made sense that some voters may not have heard of the meme. She noted the campaign had visibly embraced the meme on Twitter, but not on other platforms.“That’s strategic on the part of the campaign. They didn’t amplify it across platforms,” she said. “It’s strategic because it only resonates or resonates clearly with a particular demographic, which is meaningful to the Democrats. The Democrats need young voters.“They’re an important voter segment for the Democratic party, but they’re not the base. And so they can’t alienate the base by going too far into this pop culture reference that they don’t get.“Strategically, it is a dance that the campaign has to walk,” she added. “That’s because their voter base doesn’t get Kamala as brat, because for the most part, right, voters tend to be older. And that meme in particular is confusing. Those older voters, like, they’re not listening to Charli xcx’s music.” More

    • 138 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      JD Vance’s ‘Never Trump Guy’ Comment Becomes a Viral TikTok Remix

      by

      A mash-up of years-old comments by the Ohio senator with a hip-hop track is finding a broad audience. It’s part of a new genre of videos on the app.One of the hottest tracks on TikTok this summer is, unexpectedly, a 22-second Petey Pablo hip-hop beat remixed with a years-old audio clip of JD Vance — now former President Donald J. Trump’s vice-presidential pick — declaring, before his loyalties changed, that he was “a never Trump guy.”The song has been used in more than 8,500 TikTok videos since two independent music producers created it in July. Supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris have seized on it, wagging their fingers and swinging their arms to it, some hoping to create its official dance. It was also reposted by @KamalaHQ, the campaign’s official TikTok account. Videos with the sound have racked up more than 40 million views overall, according to Zelf, a social video analytics company focused on TikTok.It’s a marquee example of a new genre of political memes finding an audience on the short-form video app, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance.Politically minded Americans are increasingly embracing TikTok to make videos and trends out of snippets of songs and speeches in this election cycle. The app — a pandemic-fueled curiosity during the last presidential election — has since exploded its user base to 170 million Americans. About half of users under 30 say they use TikTok to help them keep up with politics and political issues, according to new data from the Pew Research Center.“People are still doing dances to random songs, but now people are doing dances to remixes of rap with Kamala Harris speeches over it,” said Emma Mont, a digital creator and administrator of @OrganizerMemes, a liberal meme account.

      @casadimusic Replying to @casadimusic JD Vance is a Never Trump Guy. Kamala Harris for President #nevertrumpguy #kamalaharris #Democrat #kamalahq ♬ Never Trump Guy JD Vance House of Evo Remix – CasaDi We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More