What Is Trump Worth to Twitter? One Analyst Estimates $2B

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-17/what-is-trump-worth-to-twitter-one-analyst-estimates-2-billion

by imartin2k • 9 years ago

89 88 9 years ago

chris_wot• 9 years ago

Ultimately, Trump is what will kill Twitter. All the awful, dreadful, inane and stupid things, all coalesced into the most powerful twitter abuser of them all. Thanks Twitter!

samdoidge• 9 years ago

He brings a lot of attention, Trump switching to another platform would be a real blow for Twitter. If it is to a platform more friendly to free speech, it could be real competition for Twitter.

jmkni• 9 years ago

I'm surprised somebody like Steve Bannon hasn't tried to launch an alternative and move Trump to it.

grabcocque• 9 years ago

It does rather cement in people's mind the association that Twitter is now mostly a haven for bullying, trolling and harassment. Something POTUS uses twitter for regularly.

Twitter had been trying to shake off the negative image it had acquired, but Trump's unchecked behaviour is rather putting paid to those hopes.

Question is if there's sustainable business in being the largest interpersonal abuse platform on the net.

nailer3• 9 years ago

Has Trump ever doxxed anyone? Encouraged others to dox or harass? I hate him but AFAICT most of his Tweets are simply disliking public figures, which isn't generally considered harassment.

sergiotapia• 9 years ago

His tweets are actually considered violence by some. But to answer your question, he has never doxxed anyone.

wutwutwutwut2• 9 years ago

Why wouldn't it be harassment bullying a public figure?

lightbyte2• 9 years ago

This is false, Donald has harrassed an 18 year old girl on twitter for asking him a question in the primary:

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/65389793993336422... https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/65396140136346828...

Which led to her getting harassed by his followers: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/this-is-what-happens...

atonse• 9 years ago

They've been trying to shake it off? How exactly? All I see is complete inaction from Twitter.

HenryTheHorse2• 9 years ago

Twitter is really a terribly managed business on so many levels, including the one you referred to. It's a mystery as to why their institutional investors haven't staged a coup and brought in new management.

pluma4• 9 years ago

Twitter created some kind of council made up almost entirely of people like @femfreq in response to #GamerGate and its aftermath. Supporters applauded it as taking responsibility and promoting a message of diversity and good things, detractors saw it as the end of Twitter-as-we-know-it.

I think this happened around the time some right-wing accounts were suspended or suffering weird "glitches" (e.g. sudden massive decreases in follower counts) but I'm not sure what the relation between that and the supposed oversight council was.

Other than the initial drama I don't think anything ever came from that. At some point Twitter sent promoted tweets pointing out the block feature with a nice animation about making nasty people go away but needless to say that wasn't even remotely helpful.

mc323• 9 years ago

It's not only Twitter. It's a phenomenon on other countries on other platforms too.

Basically, they have become a tool for conformity through approval seeking, shaming and bullying.

But most sadly it's people throwing any opinion and every opinion to see what sticks.

velobro• 9 years ago

Twitter could just ban Trump but Twitter needs Trump more than Trump needs Twitter so it'll never happen

mannigfaltig• 9 years ago

Maybe that is also the reason why Trump's account was not banned for violating the terms of service yet?

https://twitter.com/kalpenn/status/896013769410740224?ref_sr...

nailer3• 9 years ago

This is probably indicative of need for a way of better wording a ToS, which probably don't mean to stop the judicial system, police or military from doing their jobs, or for that matter boxers or MMArtists.

MadSax2• 9 years ago

What has trump done that violated their ToS?

tuxt2• 9 years ago

Threatening other people?

aaron-lebo• 9 years ago

They can't arbitrarily enforce those standards on his account without kicking a lot of other people off:

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/346996-miss...

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/kathy-griffin-spark...

edit: The first one is actually Facebook, but it's typical of a lot of online discourse, found it in a bunch of tweets threatening Trump.

monksy• 9 years ago

But yet they do. I've seen people threaten others, organize tracking/stalking/suggesting violence of an individual (antifa tracking conservative reporters in Paris), people who try to stir up race violence. Still on the platform.

dredmorbius3• 9 years ago

Feature.

koolba• 9 years ago

That's a pretty stupid example. If I say I'll beat the crap out of anyone that hurts my family is that considered a threat[1] too?

[1]: Cause in my mind it's not a threat. It's a guarantee.

5trokerac3• 9 years ago

That is one hell of a stretch.

013a2• 9 years ago

Or maybe its just because he is the President of the United States. I find it incredible that some people feel so strongly that these rules and terms have to apply perfectly equally to everyone. That's not reality.

If Twitter existed in 1939, would Kal Penn be mad at Roosevelt for threatening Hitler with an invasion if he didn't stop his shit? Sounds weird, but all externalities considered I doubt it.

Also weird that Kal didn't speak out when a state senator called for Trump's assassination on Facebook [1]. Sure is against Facebook's ToS.

Point being: Kal, and the general anti-Trump population, doesn't actually care about breaking Twitter's ToS. They don't care about any individual action he takes. They use those actions to reinforce this immutable evil picture of Trump in their head, and then look for any excuse to get that zinger in on him because it will play well with the liberal bubble they live in.

[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/onpolitics/2017...

maxerickson3• 9 years ago

Are you singling out someone prominent for criticism about how they singled out someone prominent in an ironic way or was it by accident?

TFortunato• 9 years ago

Seriously -- Everyone knows that all tweeters are equal, but some tweeters are more equal than others!

(...With apologies to George Orwell)

CM303• 9 years ago

Or perhaps because it's Kim Jong Un he's threatening. Let's face it, not only is it a mere warning but it's also aimed at perhaps the one person in the world more disliked than Trump.

If Trump was threatening a random American citizen who was not an evil dictator and doing so in a direct manner... well that may have been a different story.

kennysmoothx2• 9 years ago

Twitter has changed a lot, particularly throughout this past election cycle.

Once twitter made the change to showcase News in the "Moments" section of their platform a few years ago, Twitter content started getting very politicized and more news-centric.

I really like twitter, and ultimately what you see on your TL is directly who/what you follow, however Twitter's change to try to be a "live news conversation" has really changed the feeling of Twitter and politics are really dominating most of the conversations on Twitter at this moment.

maxerickson3• 9 years ago

I don't think it had anything much to do with the Moments feature.

kennysmoothx2• 9 years ago

Twitter's trending tab was quitenssential in starting specific conversations on twitter.

It's what highlights particular events such award shows; and what starts site wide conversations by making a hashtag popular. The trending aspect of twitter was (and still is to some degree) what got everyone on twitter talking and engaging on the same topics.

The trending tab slowly turned into the Moments tab, and instead of just highlighting hashtags they also highlighted current events and news (the most popular ones being political at the moment)

Now instead of engaging people in popular hashtags twitter is engaging them in currents events(news), and this what dominates the majority of conversations. So I do believe the Moments tab had a lot to do with the change in tone on the platform.

pluma4• 9 years ago

The worst part, as a non-American, it's always implied you should care and take action but there's practically nothing you can do or actually have to do so you're left feeling guilty, miserable and unfulfilled.

This was already pretty much the case before but coupled with the rise of outrage culture and the politicisation of Twitter, it's like a constant emotional drain. I find myself having strong opinions on topics I don't care about and have no stake in, just because people on the Internet should at each other, telling everyone they're a bad person if they aren't upset.

mschuster91• 9 years ago

and politics are really dominating most of the conversations on Twitter at this moment.

I believe this to be societal. Many people simply want to get likes & RTs - which are easy grabs if you post e.g. a photo of Trump blindly looking into the sun, or whatever. People like to hate Trump, people like to laugh, so naturally they will post stuff that makes people laugh about Trump, therefore they all get likes & RTs, while your feed remains a firehose of "dump Trump" and memes.

dasil003• 9 years ago

It's really the perfection of the Skinner box, where you carry this device around in your pocket, and you can get instant dopamine hits, and it even feels justified on some level because politics is truly important. But ultimately it is a waste of time because it adds nothing to the political dialogue except increasing polarization.

tedmiston• 9 years ago

How long until he starts running sponsored posts?

jacquesm4• 9 years ago

We're way past that point.

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/new...

r0fl• 9 years ago

The only reason I still have Twitter is to see what crazy thing trump will say next! I've been saying for a while that if trump were to stop tweeting the usage would plummet

ThomPete• 9 years ago

I don't actually think thats true. Most people aren't on Twitter. The media is and they report in their own channels. Twitters problems or success has nothing to do with Trump what so ever.

eddiecalzone• 9 years ago

Twitter is the White House press secretary. At least the deleted tweets are being preserved (according to the WH anyway). https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/15168956/donald-trump-twit...

wutwutwutwut2• 9 years ago

There is no correlation between WH claims and facts.

hathym2• 9 years ago

If I was Trump, I would short twitter stock and delete my account.

sumedh• 9 years ago

Access to his millions of followers is worth more than the money he will make following your strategy.

hathym2• 9 years ago

The next day, I would buy twitter stocks and create another account :)

mc323• 9 years ago

The thing that bothers me about twitter is the approval seeking aspect of it.

In amateur photography there is bokeh to kick around, in Twitter it's throwing anything and everything to either get a rise out of people or to get approving nods.

It's been reduced to a popularity contest and the jocks and their fans only want their voices and no one else's.

Even simply informational stuff is presented as some big expose and we should be aghast at the realization. It's hard to keep on digesting this kind of communication. Nevermind actual politics which degenerates almost exponentially fast.

OMG, they've been putting wax on old apples to make them look appealing on market shelves!

This graduating class is having one if the most challenging times getting offers and it's because [reason].

TACIXAT• 9 years ago

Twitter really feels like a broadcast / subscribe network to me. Unless you're a celebrity, you aren't getting significant interaction on there, and interaction is what I use social networks for. Whenever I log in there it is just a news feed of who made the most noise today. I can leave a witty comment and some people might see it, maybe a few more would argue against it if it's incendiary, but at the end of the day it's mostly just consuming. It leaves me wanting something more and because of that I almost never use my Twitter account.

gozur883• 9 years ago

The amazing thing about Twitter is even though it really is publish/subscribe for celebrities, many people following celebrity feeds feel like it's two-way communication.

Which is crazy.

JumpCrisscross• 9 years ago

I'm coming to the conclusion that we can have rapid, thoughtless discourse à la Twitter or painfully slow communal deliberation of views and opinions drawn from a common, if gate-kept, set of facts; the kind of deliberation that underpins democracy.

I don't say this flippantly. I just don't think the difference in virality between outrage, which requires no substantiation to provoke, and argument fares well with scaling.

mc323• 9 years ago

You make a good point. Part of the problem with Twitter when it comes to discussion is that it does not lend itself to drawn out lengthy presentations, but the opposite. And in addition, it allows you to throw mud, unsubstantiated, as truth.

It's like "yo momma" jokes. Whoever is quick to wit with sharp tongue wins, and merit is disproportionally disregarded.

Jedd• 9 years ago

Almost every medium lets you throw mud, sans substantiation, to great effect.

Limiting mud-throwing to 140 characters isn't effective anymore than allowing more than 140 characters of mud conveyance.

The problem may be that people need to be convinced (one way or the other) now in less than 140 characters, in which case we're all doomed, as very few stories worth telling can be told in <140 characters.

Drawn out - or reasoned, moderate, thoughtful, civil, researched exchanges - are almost a thing of the past. No one has time for that kind of luxury anymore.

petraeus• 9 years ago

Twitter is needed precisely because there is nothing like twitter.

Where else can you have completely clueless unfactual stream of consciousness garbage being sprouted 24/7?

As a libertarian I think this garbage is as much a requirement for a free and stable society as alt-right, neo-left and msm outlets. It provides views and opinions that you don't want to hear but that you probably should know about.

What Is Trump Worth to Twitter? One Analyst Estimates $2B

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