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Would Twitter Make President Obama 'Follow' the Tea Party If the Price Is Right?
theodp (442580) writes Giving others the impression that individuals support something that they actually don't could get you fined and placed under house arrest. But if you're Twitter, it could boost your bottom line. Gigaom's Carmel DeAmicis reports that brands pay Twitter to falsely appear in your following list, an advertising technique brought to light by William Shatner after he saw that 'MasterCard' appeared in his following list despite the fact that he didn't follow it. "By making it look like someone follows an account that they don't," writes DeAmicis, "it sends a false signal that said user cares about that brand. Although the brands are marked as 'promoted,' it's not necessarily clear that the user in question doesn't actually follow the brand. There's ethical considerations to be had. Hypothetical examples: What if you're vegan and don't want people to think you're following Burger King? Or you're the CEO of Visa and don't want people thinking you're following MasterCard? Or you're a pro-life activist and don't want people thinking you're following Planned Parenthood?" Or, if you're @BarackObama and don't want people to think you're following @TPPatriots!
frickin weasels at Twitter... should be blocking and reporting them, but block is OK for now.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
That's the new internet - anything for a buck. Lying, cheating, invading your privacy, not cleaning up the messes they've already started, only apologizing when they get caught (if then). You and I would be in jail if we did half what they do, and yet, because investors know they will get away with it, they keep throwing money at the worst offenders.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I'm really sick of the current polarized political environment. Democrats, Republicans the same thing!!!
So instead of the Tea Party or the Libertarian Party, Obama should follow the Lemon Party to make a difference:
http://www.lemonparty.org
PS: They truly support Net Neutrality in their platform..
Obama, being a politician, would "follow" anybody on Twitter, without complaint, for a large enough donation to his or his wife's causes.
This two kingdoms version of america you all seem to live is absolutely retarded. The president should be listening to what his political adversaries are saying.
if yes: leave twitter if you don't like it
if no: leave twitter because they're deceiving bastards
If Twitter is being paid to promote a brand through my appearing to follow it, they're having me act as a spokesman aren't they? If so, where's my fee? I think 10% of the gross that Twitter receives is fair.
Would be nice if the title simply and accurately described what this story is about. Sometimes excessively abstract concerns benefit from an example. This is one of the rare examples where an example distracts from the big picture.
Facebook, Twitter, etc. Users are their products and their power. Stop giving them power, unsubscribe today.
But the real money is in "guerilla marketing", pretending to be normal people in order to change your opinion. They engage in all kind of anti-social activities like spreading rumors against resistors, as well as threats and cyberbullying people resistant to their marketing. They are also the ones generating the vast amount of black propaganda around the election proccess and are trying to get people amenible to seeing their neighbors as the enemy.
Just because you follow something on Twitter or Facebook does not mean you agree with or support it. Surely it makes sense to also follow the enemy/opposition/competition just to get more of an insight into what they are doing. So, it would make sense for Obama and/or his staff to follow the Tea Party.
and the sell-out piece of shit silicon valley scum who work for them
Lets consider some common terms.
"Consumer"
"Brand Loyalty"
People are consistently manipulated via the media, their buying choices, their humor, their self identification, their politics, think about an environment where you are not exposed to some sort of advertising, propaganda, or other negative stimulus.
Do you have an environment like that?
We are drowning in a sea of media manipulation, and most can't see it as they have grown up with it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer."
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
If you're pro-life, why would you not follow Planned Parenthood? Most of what they do is preventative health care for poor women who have no other access to such services - life saving proceedures like mamograms. Or are we talking the crowd that supports life only until birth - like the "pro-life" governors who refused the affordable care act medicaid expansion killing thousands of post-partum people a year?
This isn't true. This was a bug that has already been fixed.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Giving others the impression that individuals support something that they actually don't could get you fined and placed under house arrest.
What he did wasn't "giving an impression". It was fraud, plain and simple. The court certainly thought so.
There's ethical considerations to be had.
Yes, there certainly are. But the REAL ethical consideration is whether this constitutes fraud. Again the issue is plain and simple. It might not be simple to decide, but the nature of the actual question here is black and white.
All in all, I think it's an interesting question, but it is being a bit obfuscated by the way it was presented here.
Here's Why We Have a Lawless Gotcha Capitalism Economy: "Gotcha Capitalism rewards bad behavior. It turns the normal reward function of capitalism on its head. Instead of good companies with good products and creative innovation rising to the top, we have companies that refine their gotcha mechanisms rising to the top. They create just enough surprise to walk the thin line of the law...or slip over it, but not enough to do something that might actually have a material impact on the bottom line. If you like my line of thinking, I've written an entire book about this - you can buy it here. But for now, know this: Until bad behavior starts resulting in material impact, companies won't stop. And we'll remain stuck in the sucker economy."
But Spock,
Why...
am I...
following MasterCard...
on Twitter...
if I...
didn't...
add them?
*stares dramatically at the camera, with dramatic background music*
[fade to commercial break]
Take off every Sig. For great justice.
The definition of "the price is right" implies that they would.
I suppose the interesting part is that the price is likely not terribly high.
Well if we take the time to read just some of people in Barack Obama's 646k twitter subscription https://twitter.com/BarackObam... We will notice that this list includes Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Mister of Russia. https://twitter.com/MedvedevRu... Vladimir Putin on the other hand, only follows 9 people, all heads of state, but doesn't follow Barack Obama https://twitter.com/PutinRF_En...
The President should definitely listen to the Tea Party. He's supposed to be the President of everyone in the US, not just another partisan asshole.
He says he is open to ideas from anyone. As President, that is the correct attitude for him to have.
It's not only Twitter doing that. A friend and me made new accounts on FB. The next day, FB told me my friend liked GoT. That friend was sitting next to me and he said he didn't like anything yet. So there... trying to trick us into something.
They are? OK, please answer for me:
1. Which party wants to decrease corporate money in politics?
2. Which party is for decreasing the length of copyright?
3. Which party supports jail time for fraudulent bankers?
4. Which party would increase the penalty for crimes committed by corporations, instead of the current toothless fees we currently have?
5. Which party is for reducing our illegal surveillance both here and abroad?
6. Which party is for eliminating the NSA?
I mean, sure, they're different on a bunch of minor crap no one (should) care about, but when it comes to major issues, they're identical.
I'm all for dividing good from evil, but I'm also a rationalist: I work from evidence, not hearsay. Please answer for me:
1. Which party decreased corporate money in politics?
2. Which party decreased the length of copyright?
3. Which party put fraudulent bankers in jail?
4. Which party increased the penalty for crimes committed by corporations?
5. Which party reduced our illegal surveillance both here and abroad?
6. Which party curtailed the NSA?
Democrats bemoan those nasty republicans for blocking all attempts at making a better world, but they have not blocked any of the bad stuff that makes this a worse world.
Rhetoric is useless, ignore what they say. Consider what they do
In a post on a similar article posted on the Hacker News a twitter employee explains that it was a bug in an unrelated (but, IMO, equally damning) advertisement feature on their platform.
According to him it was supposed to bump the advertised pages in the "following" list of their followers to the top. In order to do so it required removing it from the current position and reinserting at the top, as (again, according to him) the "following list" is not kept whole in whatever data structure it is stored.
I say equally damning because it reinforces the idea (common in here, not so common out there) that the user is not actually the customer but the product to be sold and "monetized" the harder it can be done without scaring him out.
This should be the definite proof of that (both the bugged and the intended feature) but people will happily trade their social influence for an easy to access technological soapbox.
No judgement being passed or merit being discussed on this post, just an observation of the current standing of the whole situation.
I con't see where you can deduce much from who someone follows, since after all the old adage goes "Keeps your friends close and your enemies closer".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sure, you get page hits, but that is not the path to "news that matters".
Fuckwits ... can't you all sit around and circle-jerk instead of posting crap like this ?
...is so misleading, because Barack Obama is the master of collecting fake followers.
The Price Is Wrong, Bitch.
>. Re:Why shouldnt Barack Obama follow the Tea Party?
Because he has the IRS to do that for him?
At least the phone version, no question of it - it's done it to me within days of having the Android app installed, not an ad, DEFINITELY an actual follow of someone.
This has occurred to me at least 5 times now, I've stopped using the Android app, I'm sick of it.
Only if they're popular enough!
Just stop using them, huh? Sure, as soon as I learn of some alternatives. I mean, to replace Google for searching, there's DuckDuckGo, though they aren't quite all I could desire in a search engine either. Could replace Slashdot with SoylentNews or maybe reddit. I'm okay with Wikipedia and relatives, don't feel they need replacing. But what is there to replace Facebook? Twitter? Skype? Ebay? Amazon? NewEgg may be making a bid to compete with Amazon. As for Ebay, there's what, Craigslist? I looked into this Ebid site, but there was one big thing I didn't like in their terms, which is that they can cancel your lifetime membership if you're accused of anything. One false accusation, and you're done. Ouch.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Wtf? Twitter sucks balls anyways. Took a look, decided it's bloody stupid alltogether, been doing just fine without.
Why the fuck would you need to replace twitter with anything? It's not like that service is actually giving you anything. You can tweet short pieces of texts nobody cares about? Just write the damn texts on some webpage and share the address. If people really care about them they will visit the page and read them. Sama goes with facebook. It's actually not giving you anything you didn't have before it. Several of my friends have quit facebook already, turns out they do fine without it. Now IRC, there is a service that has no viable competitors. And it's been around for 30 years or something. Sometimes you see super bad imitation attempts, like ICQ, MSN, Jabber, Webchats, WhatsApp, twitter, or facebook. But those come and go.
"If I stop using heroine I need an alternative!!"
I think twitter is being pretty transparent in labeling these "promoted" accounts, with a little yellow flag and everything. It's an advertisement. If celebrities or other twitter users don't like it, they're free to close their twitter accounts. The only way twitter is going to change the policy is if enough people do get turned off by it, that it effects their traffic. Twitter and facebook are really harming their longevity by being so intrusive with their advertising policies.
If the CEO of PepsiCo follows Coke will it negatively affect Pepsi in some way? I just don't see it.
the pres would get in MORE trouble for following @packers
This.