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You are here: Home / Economics / Grifters Gonna Grift / Schadenfreude Open Thread: GETTR, Dunning-Kruger

Schadenfreude Open Thread: GETTR, Dunning-Kruger

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It used to take longer than 24 hours for a top-level GOP grift to completely collapse, but there’s so much competition & so little pride in their craft these days:

… On Thursday, Miller announced the launch of “Gettr,” a new social media app aimed at conservatives that promises to be “cancel-free.” Trump fans wary of social media censorship on more prominent platforms like Twitter and Facebook started to sign up for the platform after Politico reported on the existence of the new site.
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What’s not made clear to Gettr’s new users, though, is that the site received initial funding from a foundation owned by Chinese billionaire Guo Wengui and his family. In an interview with The Daily Beast on Thursday, Miller said Guo’s “family foundation” provided Gettr with early funding.

“Some of the initial seed money has come from his family foundation,” Miller said of Guo, who also goes by the name Miles Kwok.

Guo isn’t a direct investor in Gettr, according to Miller, and doesn’t have a seat on its board or other formal role. The Trump adviser said the company was backed by a “consortium of international investors,” but declined to name them, beyond the Guo foundation, or the total amount of money that has been invested in the new social-media property so far. But while Miller downplayed Guo’s connection, sites associated with the billionaire have suggested that Gettr is Guo’s brainchild…

Two weeks ago, a bizarre ad for Gettr was posted on GTV’s video channel. The video features actors in stock footage reacting with delight to images of Gettr’s website that have been superimposed over the footage. The ad promises that Gettr will be “gossipy” and feature “virus truth,” an apparent reference to Guo’s claims that the Chinese government was behind the coronavirus pandemic. Videos of Guo appear prominently in the ad, suggesting that the billionaire would be one of the site’s main attractions.

Guo, a vocal critic of the Chinese government who is wanted in that country on corruption charges, has developed close ties to top Trump allies. The billionaire paid former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon at least $1 million dollars, and teamed up with him to promote a Chinese doctor’s claims that the coronavirus was created by the Chinese government. When federal authorities arrested Bannon on fraud charges in August 2020, they found him on a yacht owned by Guo…

But there’s plenty of schadenfreude to go around, already…

…[T]he debut immediately ran into confusion about whether it was the former president’s long-promised bid to offer his legions of followers their own social media haven or merely the next attempt to build a MAGA-alternative to the main platforms…

The former president has been looking for alternative ways to engage with his base online after having been booted off Twitter and suspended from Facebook. And his prior effort to engage online—through the launch of a professional blog—ended quickly amid widespread ridicule and poor readership. This new venture may also raise questions about privacy, including whether it harvests information about its users’ Twitter followers.

GETTR is one of the highest-profile projects in a larger ecosystem of pro-MAGA tech and social media platforms that have blossomed on the right, largely fueled by a sense that Big Tech is attempting to silence conservative and pro-Trump ideology from being disseminated online. In recent months, it was widely reported that the Trump team was searching for a platform on which to re-establish his online presence, either by buying a company outright and rebranding it as his exclusive platform, or becoming a featured draw…

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  1. 1.

    natem

    Like Popehat I too couldn’t create a GETTR account, which is a shame because I was fully prepared to give the hackers site owners all my personal information like a good Trumpgodpatriot

  3. 3.

    Mary G

    These clowns are boring. Here is a cool thread of WWII naval cats on board their duty ships in tiny hammocks the sailors made them:

    Good news: I have gathered a bunch of photos of naval ship cats in tiny hammocks. Here are sailors of the HMS Hermione in 1941 surrounding their sleeping cat, Convoy. pic.twitter.com/X1iAaezxk5— Molly Hodgdon (@Manglewood) July 2, 2021

  4. 4.

    bbleh

    And yet … and yet … tout les media seem to think that this chaotic gemisch of gombeen grifters and gullible goobers (nice alliteration, right? also Gohmert, Green, Gaetz, Gosar …) is somehow an unstoppable political juggernaut.

    McConnell, Roberts … them I’m worried about, not least because they care less for these idiots than I do.  (At least I want them to have decent health care.)  But this kinda sh!t?  It is to lol.

  10. 10.

    featheredsprite

    I actually think that Trump’s blog would have been more of a success if he had a way to interact with his followers. Instead, he used it to perform a monologue.

    And probably will on the next platform too.

  12. 12.

    dmsilev

    In my neck of the woods, a ‘getter’ is a material put inside a vacuum chamber that is designed to react with and suck up all of the unwanted waste …stuff that might otherwise contaminate the chamber.

    Name checks out.

  14. 14.

    Jude

    Unpopular opinion: Troglodyte and scumbag extraordinaire Jason Miller forcing an abortion through immoral drugging was probably the best the world could have asked for.

  15. 15.

    planetjanet

    Okay, coming here for a nightcap of Balloon Juice seems to have been a mistake.  I just watched a couple of episodes of the Watchmen.  My head was spinning from not understanding what was real and what was not in the movie.  But now I am reading about fugitive Chinese billionaires and thinking about mind control and white supremacists and can no longer tell reality from fiction.  Someone unplug me and force a reboot.

  17. 17.

    Elizabelle

    @Mary G:   Best thing I have seen today.

    The Royal Navy cat allegedly has “wives” in several ports.  Gibraltar among them.  What a life.

  18. 18.

    lurker

    @dmsilev: interestingly have dealt with getters (and driers and other interesting stuff) and also with get r done – not a lot of intersection there.  This site might have achieved it, but I am not about to go find out.

  19. 19.

    Eunicecycle

    I love how GETTR is already banning people. I thought they were supposed to be “cancel-free”?! I saw they have banned Baked Alaska already.

  20. 20.

    Adam L Silverman

    With Guo funding this, it means the PRC’s Ministry of State Security now has the Personally Identifying Information, as well as a ton of other information, from everyone who signed up.

  22. 22.

    Bill Arnold

    From infosec twitter[1]:

    I felt a disturbance in the Force, as if a thousand vuln researchers downloaded a hastily assembled APK and went silent as they started to reverse it. https://t.co/Btr4epzEhL
    — Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) July 1, 2021

    If anyone wants GETTR’s source code, they published with source maps on. Funny, their admin page lets them add and remove trending topics. GETTR, the #FreeSpeech platform! pic.twitter.com/m4pKHlpQ15
    — Gonzo (@adgodev) July 1, 2021

    Have to say that the ratfucking of GETTR has been (apparently) competent.

    [1] APK Android Package Kit (installation file)

  27. 27.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Punchy: There is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence, including from a now dismissed lawsuit, that Gun is an agent of the PRC. That his bio – that he is a billionaire personally wanted by Xi on trumped up charges and facing death if he returns to or is returned to the PRC – is a cover and that his mission was to leverage that cover and his wealth to infiltrate conservative groups and the GOP.

  29. 29.

    Bill Arnold

    Ants in a Web – Deconstructing Guo Wengui’s Online ‘Whistleblower Movement’ (Graphika Report, May 17 2021)- Worth a skim at least. Full of links, to web.archive.org copies; nice to see. No authors named in the report; one might presume due to fear. (web.archive.org links, too. Good to see)

    (Re ants, there is an amusingly possible metaphor, related to “A Thousand Plateaus”, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, related to their concept “rhizome”  )

  30. 30.

    Another Scott

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Lots of twisty passages, all alike…

    Bloomberg, via AlJazeera:

    By Ilya Banares Bloomberg
    26 May 2021

    The U.S. Justice Department has told former casino magnate Steve Wynn to register as a foreign lobbyist for China and is ready to go to court if he doesn’t comply, a person familiar with the matter said.

    The order stems from allegations that Wynn tried to persuade American officials in the summer of 2017 to send Guo Wengui, a Chinese businessman with ties to former President Donald Trump, back to his home country, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing a pending inquiry.

    Reid Weingarten, Wynn’s attorney, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Guo, who fled China in late 2014, was charged there with corruption, bribery and fraud and is considered a fugitive by Chinese authorities. The Wall Street Journal, which reported earlier on the Justice Department inquiry on Wynn, quoted Guo as saying he was glad to hear the department is investigating Wynn and that “they should criminally indict him for serving as a greedy spy of the Chinese Communist Party.”

    […]

    So, which one is Putin paying??

    “I’m not the CCP spy, You are!!11”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  32. 32.

    Martin

    Republicans are so unbearably desperate for some advantage that they are the biggest fucking marks  on the planet. I think the question we need to be asking for any republican partnership is whether they’re a spy or just a fucking idiot. I don’t think there’s a 3rd possibility.

  37. 37.

    lurker

    @Adam L Silverman: ¿por que no los dos? as might be said by another.  Would not surprise me if he is in trouble with Xi and his mission is part of working his way out of such trouble.  Something along the lines of what Manafort was talking about when he was trying to make amends with the oligarchs.

    However, if I had to bet, my guess would be he is simply a PRC agent. YMMV, results are likely the same either way.

  38. 38.

    Origuy

    Since you won’t hear about it anywhere else, the World Orienteering Championships start tomorrow in the Czech Republic. The USA will be sending a full team for both the men and women. Canada decided some time ago not to send a team this year. Our team will include a mother and son, not for the first time. Elite orienteers can have a long career. Usually there are public races that use the competition areas later in the day or in later days. This has been postponed another year to next year. I’m thinking about going; the Liberec region in the north looks beautiful and I’ve long wanted to visit Prague.

    I started learning Czech on Duolingo. Knowing some Russian, it has been easy so far.

  40. 40.

    RaflW

    “reported that the Trump team was searching for a platform on which to re-establish his online presence….by buying a company outright and rebranding it as his exclusive platform….”
    As was discussed last night, one wonders where the Trump Org would be able to raise cash to buy, well, anything more expensive than a bucket of KFC at the moment.

  41. 41.

    mrmoshpotato

    White trash. Speaking of trash, I’m halfway through the FTFNTY’s 40-minute insurrection video, and it’s a damn shame more of these Nazi shitstains weren’t shot.

  42. 42.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott: From what I have read the Chines Communist seems to be doing  live action Game of Thrones there so it’s quit likely Guo is both a spy and fugitive at the same time.

  43. 43.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @lurker: However, if I had to bet, my guess would be he is simply a PRC agent. YMMV, results are likely the same either way.

    Yes, but by Communist tradition if Guo went back to mainland China he would quite likely be arrest and shot as a spy.

  44. 44.

    Mary G

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: My speakers are borked, probably unplugged during a cat chase, so I had to watch that by reading the closed captioning. I almost didn’t and am so glad I did because it is hilarious, particularly the segment at the end about “unsinkable Sam.” Thanks for the link.

  45. 45.

    Ken

    @Bill Arnold: According to some of those analyses of the source code (because they accidentally (?) made it available to anyone browsing the site), Guo didn’t just provide money. “GETTR is part of the Guo Wengui G-ecosystem” — a twitter-like platform that his company had already developed. If Miller’s claiming/implying that it was independent development — well, his lips are moving, so that’s a given. Also, I’m not exactly sure how that turns into “no formal relationship” of Guo with GETTR.

  46. 46.

    Another Scott

    @Bill Arnold: Thanks for the pointer.

    Cult?

    Megalomaniac leader?

    False flag (to get people to out themselves as opponents of the CCP)?

    Lots of possibilities.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  47. 47.

    karen marie

    @Origuy:  I went orienteering once. It was fun, even for a directionally-challenged person like myself. If nothing else, it’s a good excuse to wander around in a lovely wood.

  49. 49.

    Another Scott

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Certainly not impossible.

    Sun Tzu on spies:

    Knowledge of the enemy’s dispositions can only be obtained from other men. [10]

    Hence the use of spies, of whom there are five classes: (1) Local spies; (2) inward spies; (3) converted spies; (4) doomed spies; (5) surviving spies.

    When these five kinds of spy are all at work, none can discover the secret system. This is called “divine manipulation of the threads.” It is the sovereign’s most precious faculty. [11]

    Having LOCAL SPIES means employing the services of the inhabitants of a district. [12]

    Having INWARD SPIES, making use of officials of the enemy. [13]

    Having CONVERTED SPIES, getting hold of the enemy’s spies and using them for our own purposes. [14]

    Having DOOMED SPIES, doing certain things openly for purposes of deception, and allowing our spies to know of them and report them to the enemy. [15]

    SURVIVING SPIES, finally, are those who bring back news from the enemy’s camp. [16]

    Hence it is that which none in the whole army are more intimate relations to be maintained than with spies. [17] None should be more liberally rewarded. In no other business should greater secrecy be preserved. [18]

    Spies cannot be usefully employed without a certain intuitive sagacity. [19]

    They cannot be properly managed without benevolence and straightforwardness. [20]

    Without subtle ingenuity of mind, one cannot make certain of the truth of their reports. [21]

    Be subtle! be subtle! and use your spies for every kind of business. [22]

    If a secret piece of news is divulged by a spy before the time is ripe, he must be put to death together with the man to whom the secret was told. [23]

    Whether the object be to crush an army, to storm a city, or to assassinate an individual, it is always necessary to begin by finding out the names of the attendants, the aides-de- camp, [24] and door-keepers and sentries of the general in command. Our spies must be commissioned to ascertain these. [25]

    The enemy’s spies who have come to spy on us must be sought out, tempted with bribes, led away and comfortably housed. Thus they will become converted spies and available for our service.

    It is through the information brought by the converted spy that we are able to acquire and employ local and inward spies. [26]

    It is owing to his information, again, that we can cause the doomed spy to carry false tidings to the enemy. [27]

    Maybe Guo is a “doomed spy”…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    Origuy

    @karen marie: If you really get into it, you crave new terrain and can spend a lot on travel. I’m slow; I get to see a lot more of the terrain than the fast runners. Except for family visits, most of my travel these days involve some orienteering.

    Good news:  All of the WOC competitors have tested negative for Covid-19.   They’re going to try to keep them in a bubble for the next week. Easier to do in remote areas of Czechia than in Tokyo.

  55. 55.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I think Miles Guo is a cynical, sociopathic, megalomaniacal opportunist. He was indeed deeply enmeshed with the State Security faction since the late 90s to early 00s, that faction that supported Xi’s rival Bo Xilai during the 2012 leadership transition. The ties were quite well established. That faction (along w/ allies at the top echelon of the People’s Liberation Army) went so far as to “attempt a coup” (in recent CCP propaganda’s telling) to overturn the collectively decided leadership succession. That factions has been thoroughly purged in the years since 2012, so it is not a surprise that Mile Guo quickly fled the country.

    His spent his early years in the US making up salacious stories of Chinese leaders’ sexual escapades, becoming a YouTube celebrity among a small minority of the Chinese diaspora. It is the same kind of “thinly sourced” innuendos that got the 5 owners of the Hong Kong bookshop kidnapped & spirited into Mainland China by Ministry of State Security. He has also been promoting the lab leak conspiracy theory to COVID-19’s origin since Apr. 2020, including fronting Dr. Yan, the post-doc from Hong Kong University that claimed genomic manipulation efforts at the WIV. If these actions are to maintain his cover, they seem to cut rather deep. Then again, unhinged conspiracy mongering from overseas helps the CCP regime in aggregate, since it can portray any & all foreign criticism as unhinged & in bad faith to the domestic population.

    However, it is difficult to divine his current role, IMHO there are 3 possibilities:

    1. He is still on his putative anti-CCP crusade, ingratiating himself with one of the two dominant political factions in the US to obtain protection. He has been attacking other exiled Chinese dissidents because such cut throat in-fighting has been a feature in the overseas Chinese dissent community since pretty much after Tiananmen. Or he is vying (w/ the Falungong) to dominate the anti-CCP discourse among the Chinese diaspora.
    2. He has been turned by Chinese intelligence, in order to reduce pressure on himself & his finances. Now he is burrowing deeper into the GOP & American conservatives (imitating Russian efforts) to gain access & influence, as well as discredit any & all critics of the CCP regime by associating them w/ his wild antics.
    3. He is now a Russian intelligence asset. His actions could serve Russian interests on a couple of levels. Mile Guo is a less obvious conduit to maintain access & influence to the GOP. Keeping the US & China at logger heads very much serve Russian interests.

    Since Miles Guo is a cynical, sociopathic, megalomaniacal opportunist, it could be any of the above, or any combination of the above. Whether or not Miles Guo himself is a Chinese intelligence asset, I would be surprised if Chinese intelligence has not penetrated his organization. Likewise w/ the Falungong

    Of course, Chinese opinion tends to suspect that he is a CIA asset, just like Li Hongzhi (cult leader of the Falungong movement).

  56. 56.

    piratedan

    so…., you’re saying that Mr. Guo is both a dessert topping AND a floor wax….

  57. 57.

    West of the Rockies

    Do men with that hideous round mustache/beard ring not realize it makes their mouth look like a hairy sphincter?

  64. 64.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Amir Khalid: Definitely would not be out of place in a Bond movie. I once too thought Miles Guo (& the Falungong for that matter) might be assets groomed by the CIA to put pressure on the CCP regime. I no longer think that. They are doing far too much damage to the US body politic, & are irrelevant within China.

  69. 69.

    Jinchi

    overnight, the website was overrun with Nick Fuentes’ white nationalist “groyper army”

    Not surprised that GETTR would be overrun by gropers?

  71. 71.

    Mart

    Quick reminder, the drunk ass pardoned criminal Bannon, who never gets tired of more criming, currently has a popular podcast that “R” leadership flicks to be guests on. Even after stealing donations from the private build that wall funds.

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