Washington Post: Why did Google take action against some pro-Trump ads? It’s one of the many mysteries of its political ad rules.. “Last month, Google took action against seven ads purchased by President Trump’s 2020 campaign, claiming that they violated the company’s rules — even though they had been viewed at least 24 million times. But Google said little else: It didn’t share a copy of the ads in question or disclose what standards they had violated. To experts, those unknowns are just two of many mysteries that demonstrate the company’s continued struggles to spot and shield users from potentially problematic political content with the 2020 presidential election a year away.”
Donald Trump
Public Document Clearinghouse: Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry (Just Security)
Just Security: Public Document Clearinghouse: Ukraine Impeachment Inquiry. “Just Security has compiled and curated all publicly available documents in Congress’s impeachment inquiry concerning President Donald Trump in connection with Ukraine. This collection seeks to include significant original source material, including relevant legislation, letters, subpoenas, deposition transcripts, executive branch communications, and litigation documents.” It looks like this is being updated fairly frequently as new documents are released.
New York Times: In Trump’s Twitter Feed: Conspiracy-Mongers, Racists and Spies
New York Times: In Trump’s Twitter Feed: Conspiracy-Mongers, Racists and Spies. “…The New York Times examined Mr. Trump’s interactions with Twitter since he took office, reviewing each of his more than 11,000 tweets and the hundreds of accounts he has retweeted, tracking the ways he is exposed to information and replicating what he is likely to see on the platform. The result, including new data analysis and previously unreported details, offers the most comprehensive view yet of a virtual world in which the president spends significant time mingling with extremists, impostors and spies.”
CNN: Facebook let a fake page posing as the Trump campaign run political ads
CNN: Facebook let a fake page posing as the Trump campaign run political ads. “Even as its executives were out fiercely defending its policies on political ads this month, Facebook (FB) was allowing an obviously fake page that purported to be linked to President Trump’s reelection campaign to run ads on its platform. The ads directed users to an online donation portal that claimed to be a way to donate to the Trump campaign.”
University at Buffalo: Innovative tool analyzes all 22,000 tweets from 2016 Republican presidential candidates
University at Buffalo: Innovative tool analyzes all 22,000 tweets from 2016 Republican presidential candidates. “Among the other major Republican hopefuls, only John Kasich, the last of the originally crowded GOP field still standing before Trump headed to the convention as the party’s presumptive nominee, emphasized strategy over issues, according to a new study by researchers from the University at Buffalo and Georgia State University. The researchers used a new tool they’ve recently developed to analyze all (yes, all) of the more than 22,000 tweets sent by Republican presidential hopefuls during the 2016 primaries.”
CNET: Almost all political tweets come from just 10% of Twitter users
CNET: Almost all political tweets come from just 10% of Twitter users. “There’s no question that Twitter plays a major role in US politics, particularly with its policy of letting world leaders like President Donald Trump tweet what they want, even if those tweets violate the tech giant’s rules of engagement. But only 22% of Americans actually use Twitter, and of those, most political tweets are coming from a very small number, according to a Wednesday report from the Pew Research Center.”
The Daily Beast: Why Trump’s Tweets Aren’t Going Anywhere
The Daily Beast: Why Trump’s Tweets Aren’t Going Anywhere. “Twitter will allow world leaders to post tweets that violate its terms of service, but will enforce new rules about sharing those tweets, the company announced Tuesday.”
