7 ms·

Trump's blog isn't lighting up internet, showing effectiveness of deplatforming

32 points by kvee 5y ago

pgcj_poster 5y ago
It doesn't have an RSS feed and it's presumably banned from the sites he got deplatformed from, so how is anyone supposed to follow it?
- glial 5y ago
  If bookmarking his site or pressing F5 occasionally is more effort than the content is worth, maybe that tells you something.
- ChrisArchitect 5y ago
  isn't there some new twitter account vowing to post links to new posts (as should be standard)? I don't want to look for it heh
  - tomstuart 5y ago
    There was, but it got suspended: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57018148 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57018148
    - johnnyanmac 5y ago
      I'm perfectly fine with banning Trump, but I'm really unsure how I feel about this. Some random accounts being banned for linking off-site seem extremely harmless and sets up some dangerous precedence for "ban evasion" IMO.
- permo-w 5y ago
  When I went to the page it asked me if I wanted to sign up for the mailing list
- cmsj 5y ago
  Many of us remember a time when there was no RSS and there were no social media sites, and we all still somehow managed to read blogs :)
commandlinefan 5y ago
> effectiveness of deplatforming ... or the danger of giving unelected, unaccountable ideologues this much power over elements of our actual government.
- klyrs 5y ago
  Sorry, what's the "danger" here? He's still doing press conferences and the Republican party is still actively cancelling members who dare to disagree with him. Folks on Fox, one of the most mainstream media companies, still refer to him as the president. For being deplatformed, he's sure got helluva platform.
  - kpatrick 5y ago
    Bush and Obama are still called Mr. President by some people. See https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/47505/what-is-the-proper-title-for-a-former-u-s-president https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/47505/what-is-t...
    - klyrs 5y ago
      Yes, and it's appropriate to address Trump with the same honorific. But referring to him in present tense as "the president" is quite different than addressing him as "Mr. President", and it's the former that raises an eyebrow Curiously, your link suggests that Trump liked people calling him Mr. Trump even while he was president, where that was seen as passive aggressive when done to Bush II.
      - permo-w 5y ago
        Which is it that they’re actually doing? Do you have evidence to show that?
- scotuswroteus 5y ago
  >this much power ... or the power that's been building for twenty years without a peep from right-leaning people who all of a sudden care about this topic because it finally affects them
Dig1t 5y ago
As much as I dislike Trump, I can't say I'm very happy seeing censorship celebrated. Of course these private companies are allowed to do whatever they want, but silencing speech in what has effectively become a public forum doesn't help us treat the underlying cause of what caused Trump to become popular in the first place (IMHO the thing that we really need to address as a country).
- oxguy3 5y ago
  You break the rules; you suffer the consequences. He incited a riot; he lost his platform. Banning him doesn't fix our country, sure, but social media platforms enforcing a basic standard of conduct seems like a positive to me.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    >He incited a riot I wasn't aware of that. Do you have a source?
    - cmsj 5y ago
      If only sealions could use Google :(
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        I know how to use Google, but can't find a real source for that. Please share if you have any :)
        cmsj 5y ago
        s/can't/don't want to/ FTFY
        moralestapia 5y ago
        I know what I wrote. Was it a tweet or something? A video? I honestly can't find it. If it's so easy for you just link me to the source and stop behaving like a child.
klyrs 5y ago
Who wants to read some crummy blog? He once threatened to make a platform to rival twitter's. Instead, he built himself a soapbox. Social media success is tied to engagement. A soapbox is antithetical to that. Gab was poorly executed, but they had plenty of engagement with people who were "deplatformed" elsewhere. This doesn't show the effectiveness of deplatforming, it shows Trump's lack of vision
- kvee 5y ago
  If he'd made a platform to rival twitter, that would have been another platform. It does seem interesting that people like Trump, despite their celebrity, have significantly greater reach nowadays via platforms, not via blogs like in the days of the early internet.
- SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
  > He once threatened to make a platform to rival twitter's. True but 1) he's hardly going to code it himself and 2) he's fundamentally not a details or follow-through person. Promises, bluster and threats are his forte. That and bankruptcies.
  - BitwiseFool 5y ago
    Any social network tied to Donald Trump's name would be a PR disaster because you'd end up with a ton of trolls on it and every controversial post, big or small, serious or not, would be something his opponents would demand he disavow. But strict moderation would also defeat the purpose of the site and alienate his base. So I think the ultimate choice was to have a social network of one person - a blog page on his website. And that's his "platform" now.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      > So I think the ultimate choice was to have a social network of one person Something centred on exactly one person is also very much on-brand.
  - klyrs 5y ago
orthros 5y ago
No way this could possibly come back to bite people at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Nope.
- seventytwo 5y ago
  If people on the opposite side of the spectrum start acting like trump, I’ll advocate for them to be deplatformed, too. Until then, Trump’s blog is where he belongs.
- data_acquired 5y ago
  The anti-imperial, Communist-leaning, anti-war Left has been de-platformed a lot through the ages though. So its been biting that segment of the Left for a long long time.
  - permo-w 5y ago
    >The anti-imperial, Communist-leaning, anti-war Left If I'm interpreting correctly, either you mean the group of people who are all of those things, or anyone on the left who is one or more of those things. If you mean the former, then you mean a very small group of people. Very small. No one is a communist these days. People who are aren't even necessarily anti-war, or anti-imperial. The group of people is so small it's not even really worth commenting on for such a macro issue If you mean the latter, then you're lumping a very large, very diverse group of people together. So diverse that there's very little point commenting on their collective views
    - data_acquired 5y ago
      I meant various strains of anti-war/Communist-leaning (specifically,Marx)/anti-imperial views across countries through the late 1800s to the late 20th century have been deplatformed (be it newspaper bans or other restrictions on speech). As for not mentioning this sentence in a macro-issue, my point is to rather look at it in a time-frame of a century or more, and argue that "deplatforming" has hit multiple shades of the political spectrum in the long run.
- 5y ago
approxim8ion 5y ago
Sure, but like it or not, Trump also happens to be yesterday's news for a lot of people. He still might have a very dedicated fan base, and not being on the largest platforms that now serve as portals to direct people to almost everything they encounter online certainly might hurt, but it's also possible that a lot of this is organic.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  It's a chicken and egg problem. I'm certain being shut-out of every major platform lead to much fewer people actively seeking out his commentary.
aazaa 5y ago
> Trump’s new blog has attracted a little over 212,000 engagements, defined as backlinks and social interactions — including likes, shares and comments — received across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit. Before the ban, a single Trump tweet was typically liked and retweeted hundreds of thousands of times Here's the blog: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk I think the recycled content, partisan grandstanding, and constant use of meaningless adjectives might have something to do with it as well. It's boring and poorly-written.
- helen___keller 5y ago
  > I think the recycled content, partisan grandstanding, and constant use of meaningless adjectives might have something to do with it as well. Seriously, I get that he's trying to pander to his base but I checked his blog once and the most recent post was repeating the same baseless allegations about voter fraud that he had been making on Twitter up until the day he was banned. Good riddance.
- permo-w 5y ago
  I wouldn't call it boring. Deluded to the point of hilarity I'd say. From 2:45 today: >When I was in office we were known as the Peace Presidency By whom?! I'm not sure even his supporters would agree with that
opwieurposiu 5y ago
TFA is unclear about the url. Is this the blog they are talking about? https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk
krapp 5y ago
Consider the following. Trump's blog isn't lighting up the internet, because Trump is no longer relevant. He's no longer "leader of the free world," and his words no longer matter. The man is nothing but an angry, delusional old sociopath raging into the void. The country has moved on from him and his bullshit.
- johnnyanmac 5y ago
  >The country has moved on from him and his bullshit. oh I wish that was the case. People may not care about the person, but the "ideals" (whatever those are. Something about walls?) will likely be something that will haunt us for the next few decades. EDIT: looking it up, I guess even wikipedia agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism

32 points by kvee 5y ago

It doesn't have an RSS feed and it's presumably banned from the sites he got deplatformed from, so how is anyone supposed to follow it?

glial 5y ago
If bookmarking his site or pressing F5 occasionally is more effort than the content is worth, maybe that tells you something.
ChrisArchitect 5y ago
isn't there some new twitter account vowing to post links to new posts (as should be standard)? I don't want to look for it heh
- tomstuart 5y ago
  There was, but it got suspended: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57018148 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-57018148
  - johnnyanmac 5y ago
    I'm perfectly fine with banning Trump, but I'm really unsure how I feel about this. Some random accounts being banned for linking off-site seem extremely harmless and sets up some dangerous precedence for "ban evasion" IMO.
permo-w 5y ago
When I went to the page it asked me if I wanted to sign up for the mailing list
cmsj 5y ago
Many of us remember a time when there was no RSS and there were no social media sites, and we all still somehow managed to read blogs :)

commandlinefan 5y ago

> effectiveness of deplatforming ... or the danger of giving unelected, unaccountable ideologues this much power over elements of our actual government.

klyrs 5y ago
Sorry, what's the "danger" here? He's still doing press conferences and the Republican party is still actively cancelling members who dare to disagree with him. Folks on Fox, one of the most mainstream media companies, still refer to him as the president. For being deplatformed, he's sure got helluva platform.
- kpatrick 5y ago
  Bush and Obama are still called Mr. President by some people. See https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/47505/what-is-the-proper-title-for-a-former-u-s-president https://politics.stackexchange.com/questions/47505/what-is-t...
  - klyrs 5y ago
    Yes, and it's appropriate to address Trump with the same honorific. But referring to him in present tense as "the president" is quite different than addressing him as "Mr. President", and it's the former that raises an eyebrow Curiously, your link suggests that Trump liked people calling him Mr. Trump even while he was president, where that was seen as passive aggressive when done to Bush II.
    - permo-w 5y ago
      Which is it that they’re actually doing? Do you have evidence to show that?
scotuswroteus 5y ago
>this much power ... or the power that's been building for twenty years without a peep from right-leaning people who all of a sudden care about this topic because it finally affects them

Dig1t 5y ago

As much as I dislike Trump, I can't say I'm very happy seeing censorship celebrated. Of course these private companies are allowed to do whatever they want, but silencing speech in what has effectively become a public forum doesn't help us treat the underlying cause of what caused Trump to become popular in the first place (IMHO the thing that we really need to address as a country).

oxguy3 5y ago
You break the rules; you suffer the consequences. He incited a riot; he lost his platform. Banning him doesn't fix our country, sure, but social media platforms enforcing a basic standard of conduct seems like a positive to me.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  >He incited a riot I wasn't aware of that. Do you have a source?
  - cmsj 5y ago
    If only sealions could use Google :(
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      I know how to use Google, but can't find a real source for that. Please share if you have any :)
      - cmsj 5y ago
        s/can't/don't want to/ FTFY
        moralestapia 5y ago
        I know what I wrote. Was it a tweet or something? A video? I honestly can't find it. If it's so easy for you just link me to the source and stop behaving like a child.

klyrs 5y ago

Who wants to read some crummy blog? He once threatened to make a platform to rival twitter's. Instead, he built himself a soapbox. Social media success is tied to engagement. A soapbox is antithetical to that. Gab was poorly executed, but they had plenty of engagement with people who were "deplatformed" elsewhere. This doesn't show the effectiveness of deplatforming, it shows Trump's lack of vision

kvee 5y ago
If he'd made a platform to rival twitter, that would have been another platform. It does seem interesting that people like Trump, despite their celebrity, have significantly greater reach nowadays via platforms, not via blogs like in the days of the early internet.
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
> He once threatened to make a platform to rival twitter's. True but 1) he's hardly going to code it himself and 2) he's fundamentally not a details or follow-through person. Promises, bluster and threats are his forte. That and bankruptcies.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago
  Any social network tied to Donald Trump's name would be a PR disaster because you'd end up with a ton of trolls on it and every controversial post, big or small, serious or not, would be something his opponents would demand he disavow. But strict moderation would also defeat the purpose of the site and alienate his base. So I think the ultimate choice was to have a social network of one person - a blog page on his website. And that's his "platform" now.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    > So I think the ultimate choice was to have a social network of one person Something centred on exactly one person is also very much on-brand.
- klyrs 5y ago

orthros 5y ago

No way this could possibly come back to bite people at the opposite end of the political spectrum. Nope.

seventytwo 5y ago
If people on the opposite side of the spectrum start acting like trump, I’ll advocate for them to be deplatformed, too. Until then, Trump’s blog is where he belongs.
data_acquired 5y ago
The anti-imperial, Communist-leaning, anti-war Left has been de-platformed a lot through the ages though. So its been biting that segment of the Left for a long long time.
- permo-w 5y ago
  >The anti-imperial, Communist-leaning, anti-war Left If I'm interpreting correctly, either you mean the group of people who are all of those things, or anyone on the left who is one or more of those things. If you mean the former, then you mean a very small group of people. Very small. No one is a communist these days. People who are aren't even necessarily anti-war, or anti-imperial. The group of people is so small it's not even really worth commenting on for such a macro issue If you mean the latter, then you're lumping a very large, very diverse group of people together. So diverse that there's very little point commenting on their collective views
  - data_acquired 5y ago
    I meant various strains of anti-war/Communist-leaning (specifically,Marx)/anti-imperial views across countries through the late 1800s to the late 20th century have been deplatformed (be it newspaper bans or other restrictions on speech). As for not mentioning this sentence in a macro-issue, my point is to rather look at it in a time-frame of a century or more, and argue that "deplatforming" has hit multiple shades of the political spectrum in the long run.
5y ago

approxim8ion 5y ago

Sure, but like it or not, Trump also happens to be yesterday's news for a lot of people. He still might have a very dedicated fan base, and not being on the largest platforms that now serve as portals to direct people to almost everything they encounter online certainly might hurt, but it's also possible that a lot of this is organic.

BitwiseFool 5y ago
It's a chicken and egg problem. I'm certain being shut-out of every major platform lead to much fewer people actively seeking out his commentary.

aazaa 5y ago

> Trump’s new blog has attracted a little over 212,000 engagements, defined as backlinks and social interactions — including likes, shares and comments — received across Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Reddit. Before the ban, a single Trump tweet was typically liked and retweeted hundreds of thousands of times Here's the blog: https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk I think the recycled content, partisan grandstanding, and constant use of meaningless adjectives might have something to do with it as well. It's boring and poorly-written.

helen___keller 5y ago
> I think the recycled content, partisan grandstanding, and constant use of meaningless adjectives might have something to do with it as well. Seriously, I get that he's trying to pander to his base but I checked his blog once and the most recent post was repeating the same baseless allegations about voter fraud that he had been making on Twitter up until the day he was banned. Good riddance.
permo-w 5y ago
I wouldn't call it boring. Deluded to the point of hilarity I'd say. From 2:45 today: >When I was in office we were known as the Peace Presidency By whom?! I'm not sure even his supporters would agree with that

opwieurposiu 5y ago

TFA is unclear about the url. Is this the blog they are talking about? https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk https://www.donaldjtrump.com/desk

krapp 5y ago

Consider the following. Trump's blog isn't lighting up the internet, because Trump is no longer relevant. He's no longer "leader of the free world," and his words no longer matter. The man is nothing but an angry, delusional old sociopath raging into the void. The country has moved on from him and his bullshit.

johnnyanmac 5y ago
>The country has moved on from him and his bullshit. oh I wish that was the case. People may not care about the person, but the "ideals" (whatever those are. Something about walls?) will likely be something that will haunt us for the next few decades. EDIT: looking it up, I guess even wikipedia agrees: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trumpism