I can’t pretend WH social media meet up isn’t hysterically funny. Overpaid conservative commentators gave Obama so much shit for doing a YouTube interview or some shit w/ a tween and now emperor trump is gonna surround himself with walking memes because he’s mad about his ratios
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) July 11, 2019
For edutainment purposes / posterity only, since this is one of those social-media sites…
Actually, the invitation list seems to have been curated (as the Youngs say) with a certain level of craft: The real bottomfeeders and genuine crazies didn’t get invited, just those one-foot-in-each-camp opportunists who are too careless for Fox Media and too careful to get banned by the big platforms.
… The White House hasn’t released a public list of attendees for the Thursday afternoon event, but a number of pro-Trump personalities have posted invitations on Twitter. They include Ali Alexander, a right-wing operative pushing a smear that Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Kamala Harris (CA) isn’t really “an American Black,” a pro-Trump “memesmith” who goes by the screenname “@CarpeDonktum,” and blogger Jim Hoft, whose Gateway Pundit blog frequently promotes hoaxes.
The invitee list also includes more traditional White House visitors, including Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), and representatives from campus conservative group Turning Point USA and conservative YouTube channel PragerU. In an Instagram post, Turning Point executive Benny Johnson promised to use the conference to give Trump “dank meme ideas.”…
Notably, the group so far doesn’t appear to include anyone who has actually been banned from major social platforms, even though those bans have played a significant role in driving accusations on the right that the social giants are biased. Pro-Trump figures like anti-Muslim activist Laura Loomer, InfoWars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and Proud Boys men’s group founder Gavin McInnes, for example, don’t appear to have been invited…
It looks like Social Media Summit attendees have to submit their questions to Trump in advance, judging by posts from invitees. Could cut down on the potential for craziness. pic.twitter.com/3Xdl7L37Aj
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 11, 2019
Milo is angry he wasn't invited too, pic.twitter.com/e3G6kQJOIJ
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) July 11, 2019
Of course, count on Infowars to show up anyway (and not get chased off):
infowars is interviewing bill mitchell outside the white house digital media summit pic.twitter.com/sKoRbRMvtp
— Caleb Ecarma (@calebecarma) July 11, 2019
L-R: Ali ‘Kamala’s Not Really Black’ Alexander, James ‘Breitbart’s Bastard Son’ O’Keefe III, TP-USA’s Charlie ‘Diaper Boy’ Kirk, and Gateway Pundit Jim ‘Dumbest Man on the Internet’ Hoft
Only the best and brightest. #FML pic.twitter.com/UpJUdRyLc7
— BT (@back_ttys) July 11, 2019
And one more who couldn’t bear to stay away…
just now, from a source familiar: last minute addition to the President Trump White House social media gathering: @DonaldJTrumpJr. https://t.co/OKYDSJJGs6
— Asawin Suebsaeng (@swin24) July 11, 2019
Notes from an actual journalist with the ‘nut graf‘ of the proceedings:
This strikes me as semi-notable — Trump semi-empathizes with social media companies' decision to ban certain people, calling their content "out there" and "bad." https://t.co/HoqDl7YsZl
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 11, 2019
Trump says "some" of the people at the social media event are "extraordinary," telling them, "The crap you think of is unbelievable."
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 11, 2019
Some underlying comedy here is that there are lots of conservative complaints about social media companies but Trump keeps talking about just one: how they are supposedly crimping his follower count (they aren't).
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 11, 2019
Happens to plenty of aging men, dude — talk to your urologist:
His tweets are no longer taking off like they used to, complains @POTUS, implying something unusual is going on.
"It used to be like a rocket shop when I put out a beauty." pic.twitter.com/H6lKuvp8eP
— Steve Herman (@W7VOA) July 11, 2019
He also doesn't understand how he lost a million followers at a time.
Twitter was doing their bot purges.
— JJ MacNab (@jjmacnab) July 11, 2019
It’s nice, though, to get a preview of the Trump Presidential Library and Riverboat Casino Sponsored by DeutscheBank. https://t.co/rxs5vi5FcN
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 12, 2019
AP report:
… The president used the event to air grievances over his treatment by Big Tech, but also to praise some of the most caustic voices on the right, who help energize Trump’s political base.
“Some of you guys are out there,” he told them. “I mean it’s genius, but it’s bad.”
Trump singled out for praise James O’Keefe, the right-wing activist whose Project Veritas organization once tried to plant a false story in The Washington Post. In May 2010, O’Keefe and three others pleaded guilty in federal court to a misdemeanor in a scheme in which they posed as telephone repairmen in Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans district office…
The meeting represented an escalation of Trump’s battle with companies like Facebook, Google and even his preferred communications outlet, Twitter, where he has an estimated 61 million followers. The president has claimed, without evidence, that the companies are “against me” and even suggested U.S. regulators should sue them on grounds of anti-conservative bias.
He announced Thursday that he is directing his administration to explore “all regulatory and legislative solutions to protect free speech and the free-speech rights of all Americans.”…
Among the other conservative organizations participating in the White House meeting were Turning Point USA, a nonprofit; PragerU, short for Prager University, which puts out short videos with a conservative perspective on politics and economics; the Media Research Center; and the Heritage Foundation, a Washington think tank…
[Big Social Media: What he’s selling, we’re not buying.]
Representatives for Facebook, Google and Twitter have declined to comment specifically on the White House meeting. The Internet Association, the industry’s major trade group representing Facebook, Google and dozens of other companies, said online platforms “are the best tool for promoting voices from all political perspectives in history.”“Internet companies are not biased against any political ideology, and conservative voices in particular have used social media to great effect,” the group’s president Michael Beckerman said in a statement Thursday…
Or *some* kind of medical professional…
truly, this has taken years off my life https://t.co/stP4SxWmgZ pic.twitter.com/KBypECMRNa
— Ashley Feinberg (@ashleyfeinberg) July 12, 2019
SERIOUSLY, PEOPLE…
I’d like to exercise my freedom of speech to respond: Jesus fucking Christ. https://t.co/RXycnwfWic
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) July 11, 2019
Ignorant word salad, statements that are insufficiently coherent to be provably false statements of fact, and semi-communicative exhortations and cries such as "Yorp! Yorp!" are protected under the First Amendment.https://t.co/b0JZPZiAH6
— 1000/24thHat (@Popehat) July 11, 2019
The video, with context, does not make Trump's incoherent free speech comment better. It makes it much worse.https://t.co/U0i7Pu6fZ1
— 1000/24thHat (@Popehat) July 11, 2019
Trump was literally just found in court to have violated the free speech of dissenters on social media. pic.twitter.com/fHle4NVTaZ
— Jesse Lee (@JesseCharlesLee) July 11, 2019
And then: The Afterparty!:
Key WH aides want Trump in Rose Garden more often—to look presidential.
Ex-aide Seb Gorka confronted Playboy magazine‘s Brian Karem.
Joy Villa chanted “Gor-ka.”
Mark Dice shouted at CNN’s Jim Acosta and said his book lasted just 2 weeks on bestsellers list, per @NikkiSchwab. https://t.co/K3UZEtBZL2
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 11, 2019
Striking image of a gutsy, hardnosed career professional standing his ground, and also Sebastian Gorka https://t.co/YojUxAOri7
— Adam Weinstein (@AdamWeinstein) July 11, 2019
Sad trombone post-credit scene:
Being vetted for their Cabinet positions.
Just kidding, that’s preposterous. This admin doesn’t vet anyone.
— rakish finn; very legal, very cool ?????? (@AnthropObscene) July 11, 2019
The social media summit features Kellyanne Conway interviewing Diamond & Silk.
— Will Sommer (@willsommer) July 11, 2019
AnderJ
Sounds like grandpa comments on his own farts
mrmoshpotato
Wait, wait, wait, STOP! The nutjobs they let in was the result of a SCREENING process? Are they fucking sure? Because just the tweets I saw from LGF’s Charles Johnson and Crooks and Liars’ Karoli among others looked bonkers!
Who the hell would’ve been in the Rose Garden with no screening process?! Proud Bois aka Nazi trash giving fascist salutes and masturbating all over the flowers?
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: They were there, in the bushes with Spicer.
NotMax
Ah, the Keep It White House summit. What, no hamberders? Feels like a century that have been saying it: Social media is neither.
McLuhanesque descriptors updated for the 21st century – hot, cool and putrid.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
If there was ever a post’s content deserving of an OH ‘Blech’… :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@mrmoshpotato:
They were seen in the vegetable garden too.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: LOL
NotMax
@BillinGlendaleCA
Well, you-kennst-who was a vegetarian….
plato
Isn’t jim hoft dead yet? Bummer.
JPL
For all those in Barry’s path, I hope that you are safe today.
OzarkHillbilly
@plato: Yeah, he’s dead. Somebody should tell him.
Spanky
@OzarkHillbilly: Apparently, you can be brain dead and still be ambulatory. Who knew?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
montanareddog
@plato:
Phrasing, given Dim Jim’s sexual orientation!
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: Serendipitously, my son and his SO are up here for his brother’s birthday float. They have an old friend (a refugee from flooding in Baton Rouge) watching their first floor apartment in Gretna while they are gone. They talked to him yesterday and he said the water has come up and then gone down but so far not gotten into the apt. As is he has everything stacked on top of the furniture, for what ever good that will do. IIRC the levee there is about 30 feet high. If the Mississippi over tops it, all bets are off.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: There’s An Environmental Disaster Unfolding In The Gulf of Mexico
A slow-moving flood of polluted Mississippi River water is causing serious damage to Gulf species, and a major storm threatens to make it worse.
mrmoshpotato
@plato: You mean dead inside? I’d say yes.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Isn’t that your son who was suffered severe injuries? Hopefully he won’t lose everything.
Keith P.
For added context, Sebastian Gorka, the guy getting up in some nondescript CNN journalist’s face, drives a *FOUR* cylinder Mustang with a license plate that reads “ART WAR”. How often do you think this guy gets smoked at red lights daily by laughing millennials who have no idea who the fuck he is?
Ken
@mrmoshpotato:
How’d you get access to the plans for the Veterans’ Day ceremony?
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: That probably is the Veterans’ Day plan knowing this shitshow of a bastard administration.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I am think, Trump immigrant bashing is less part of some political ploy on his part and more immigrants are vulnerable members of society that he can get away with abusing.
Amir Khalid
I have not come across this simile before. What does it mean?
CliosFanBoy
@Keith P.: I always think of him as “Dr.” Gorka sinc ehis Ph.D. is a joke.
Urza
@Keith P.: Why do they even make a 4 cylinder Mustang? Let alone someone wanting a Mustang buying it. They have to be pretty cheap, or know nothing about cars, probably both in his case.