5 ms·

Assuming he could nuke Twitter off the face of the planet, I wouldn't see it as nose-cutting. His 80,430,710 followers would follow him to Facebook or Instagram

Assuming he could nuke Twitter off the face of the planet, I wouldn't see it as nose-cutting. His 80,430,710 followers would follow him to Facebook or Instagram. Or even Gab. His direct pipeline would remain intact.

notahacker 6y ago
I'm not sure most of them would, especially if it was Gab or something more obscure still. Ironically I think initially at least to get the message across he'd rely on coverage of whatever platform he chose to vent on coming from his other bugbear: mainstream media.
- function_seven 6y ago
  Good point. It would be some fraction and not everyone. It just occurred to me that I follow him on Twitter, but would never create a Gab account. Hell, I don't log into Facebook anymore, and he wouldn't be enough of a reason to start doing that again.
michaelmrose 6y ago
You say this very glibly but are you sure the question doesn't deserve more thought? Everyone has a twitter account? How many people would you lose in transition just via friction? If he spewing hate via twitter to spewing hate via instagram/facebook then facebook might ultimately find themselves pressured to do something about it especially if a major US company had been cratered in an obvious repressive act of tyranny. Zuckerberg might lack in character and backbone but do you really believe all its employees are equally lacking? If he moves to the neo nazi land of gab might even less of his followers follow? Can gab even handle increasing its userbase by 80x? Do you think the nature of the platform doesn't matter at all as far as engagement or value of engagement? People engage on twitter a lot already even without the president. Familiarity implies normalcy. On twitter his crazy crap is bookended by all the more normalcy of people's regular lives. If it was surrounded by white supremacists and crazy it wouldn't carry the same cache and would turn off a good chunk of the moderates. I'm going to call it. He can't pull the trigger on Twitter even if he was allowed because it would reduce the effectiveness of his messaging by half.
- function_seven 6y ago
  I wrote the "assuming he could" preamble because I agree with you that he can't pull the trigger on Twitter. And you're probably right about the atmosphere on Gab not allowing him to use that platform to get the same reach. But Facebook. That's a platform with more subscribers than Twitter. Way more. 3 times as many in the U.S. So, going with the premise that Trump was able to nuke twitter, how quickly do you think Zuckerberg is going to pick a fight with him if he decides to post there 30 times a day instead of at twitter? I'm not so sure all that much.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    I guess one question is why isn't he using facebook right now if its an even better platform? Facebook is now that thing that I only ever log into on my computer when I want to talk to family members and ignore people sharing dumb things. Twitter is that thing that chimes 2 seconds after someone I am interested says something interesting. I don't think they are the same thing at ALL.
    - function_seven 6y ago
      They're not the same, that's true. What drew him to twitter was exactly what you describe: people get notified 2 seconds after he sends something out. The whole use-case of following public figures. That wasn't a thing (as far as I know) on Facebook back then. You had to have a 2-way connection ("be friends") with each person you followed. (I think? I may be misremembering.) It's how he won the presidency. But now the power structure is different. The President and his followers can turn Facebook into something akin to twitter just by using it that way. The mechanics of any given service aren't written in stone. Facebook could easily ping your phone whenever someone you follow posts something new. Or Instagram, Snapchat, etc.
      - michaelmrose 6y ago
        Even if HE used it that way it would still most likely be pinging me about useless crap. Trump can lose the presidency faster than facebook can turn into twitter.

notahacker 6y ago

I'm not sure most of them would, especially if it was Gab or something more obscure still. Ironically I think initially at least to get the message across he'd rely on coverage of whatever platform he chose to vent on coming from his other bugbear: mainstream media.

function_seven 6y ago
Good point. It would be some fraction and not everyone. It just occurred to me that I follow him on Twitter, but would never create a Gab account. Hell, I don't log into Facebook anymore, and he wouldn't be enough of a reason to start doing that again.

michaelmrose 6y ago

You say this very glibly but are you sure the question doesn't deserve more thought? Everyone has a twitter account? How many people would you lose in transition just via friction? If he spewing hate via twitter to spewing hate via instagram/facebook then facebook might ultimately find themselves pressured to do something about it especially if a major US company had been cratered in an obvious repressive act of tyranny. Zuckerberg might lack in character and backbone but do you really believe all its employees are equally lacking? If he moves to the neo nazi land of gab might even less of his followers follow? Can gab even handle increasing its userbase by 80x? Do you think the nature of the platform doesn't matter at all as far as engagement or value of engagement? People engage on twitter a lot already even without the president. Familiarity implies normalcy. On twitter his crazy crap is bookended by all the more normalcy of people's regular lives. If it was surrounded by white supremacists and crazy it wouldn't carry the same cache and would turn off a good chunk of the moderates. I'm going to call it. He can't pull the trigger on Twitter even if he was allowed because it would reduce the effectiveness of his messaging by half.

function_seven 6y ago
I wrote the "assuming he could" preamble because I agree with you that he can't pull the trigger on Twitter. And you're probably right about the atmosphere on Gab not allowing him to use that platform to get the same reach. But Facebook. That's a platform with more subscribers than Twitter. Way more. 3 times as many in the U.S. So, going with the premise that Trump was able to nuke twitter, how quickly do you think Zuckerberg is going to pick a fight with him if he decides to post there 30 times a day instead of at twitter? I'm not so sure all that much.
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  I guess one question is why isn't he using facebook right now if its an even better platform? Facebook is now that thing that I only ever log into on my computer when I want to talk to family members and ignore people sharing dumb things. Twitter is that thing that chimes 2 seconds after someone I am interested says something interesting. I don't think they are the same thing at ALL.
  - function_seven 6y ago
    They're not the same, that's true. What drew him to twitter was exactly what you describe: people get notified 2 seconds after he sends something out. The whole use-case of following public figures. That wasn't a thing (as far as I know) on Facebook back then. You had to have a 2-way connection ("be friends") with each person you followed. (I think? I may be misremembering.) It's how he won the presidency. But now the power structure is different. The President and his followers can turn Facebook into something akin to twitter just by using it that way. The mechanics of any given service aren't written in stone. Facebook could easily ping your phone whenever someone you follow posts something new. Or Instagram, Snapchat, etc.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      Even if HE used it that way it would still most likely be pinging me about useless crap. Trump can lose the presidency faster than facebook can turn into twitter.