# GOP halts Twitter spending
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Created:** [August 8, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380 "2019-08-08T23:47:30Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [August 8, 2019, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/1 "2019-08-08T23:47:30Z")
I’m gonna predict that this will prove to be one of the most hilariously bad ideas in 21st century politics: [url=[GOP freezes Twitter spending after McConnell account locked | AP News](https://apnews.com/a0bfc23fae0a446d83d266c18efee051)]Note that the account suspension that is being given as the reason for the “protest” was restored once the offending tweet was deleted:
> [@](#):
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> The Republican Party, the Trump campaign and other GOP organizations said Thursday that they are freezing their spending on Twitter to protest the platform’s treatment of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
>
> Twitter temporarily locked McConnell’s campaign account Wednesday after it shared a video in which some protesters spoke of violence outside his Kentucky home, where he is recovering from a shoulder fracture.
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> The social media platform said in a statement that users were locked out temporarily due to a tweet “that violated our violent threats policy, specifically threats involving physical safety.” The statement did not indicate exactly how long the account was frozen, saying only that it was temporary. The account was active Thursday, but no longer contained the tweet.
But that’s not enough! The GOP will not sit idly by and continue to use this valuable service! They’re gonna teach Twitter a lesson about not being heard and not being seen and fading into irrelevancy via continued absence!
> [@](#):
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> National Republican Congressional Committee Executive Director Parker Hamilton Poling said her organization was halting Twitter spending “until they correct their inexcusable targeting of @Team Mitch.”
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> “We will stand firmly with our friends against anti-conservative bias,” Poling said.
>
> The national Republican Party and President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign had projected spending $300,000 to $500,000 this month on Twitter, according to one GOP official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the official wasn’t authorized to publicly discuss the plans.
Oh no! This $4.4B company with monthly revenue of $787M will surely cave when they realize that they’ve lost nearly 1/1500th of their income! :rolleyes:
At least, that’s my take on it: hilariously myopic, absolutely without a goal and unlikely to achieve anything other than obscurity for some in the GOP and for some of the GOP’s “positions”.
But hey, GOP, you be you. Please!
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### Author:  [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/2 "2019-08-09T00:05:11Z")
So… The GOP wants to be able to dictate that a private company allow the GOP to violate their terms of service, and post their tweets that contain threats against specific people’s personal safety.
OK then.
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### Author:  [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/3 "2019-08-09T00:23:41Z")
Won’t the Russians just increase their spending to compensate?
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### Author:  [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/4 "2019-08-09T00:58:45Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#):
>
> Won’t the Russians just increase their spending to compensate?
Well, Moscow Mitch surely would know.
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### Author:  [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/5 "2019-08-09T01:21:16Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#):
>
> So… The GOP wants to be able to dictate that a private company allow the GOP to violate their terms of service, and post their tweets that contain threats against specific people’s personal safety.
>
> OK then.
I’m all for voting with your wallet (which appears to be what they’re doing), but this is the same group that cries ‘freedom of speech’ anytime a republican gets banned from the platform. For a group of people that are not only claim to adhere closely to the constitution but also who’s job it is to work in politics, you’d think they’d understand what freedom of speech does and does not mean, as well as the fact that a private company can deny service to them at any time for any reason.
Twitter could decide that from this point forward there will be now political speak from the Right side of the aisle and they wouldn’t be (legally) doing anything wrong. This [“I thought this was America”](https://i.imgflip.com/16a9l6.jpg) BS gets old and makes people IMHO look incompetent.
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### Author:  [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/6 "2019-08-09T01:58:06Z")
How do people “spend money on Twitter”? I honestly don’t understand that.
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### Author:  [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/7 "2019-08-09T02:06:41Z")
> [@Slash1972](#):
>
> How do people “spend money on Twitter”? I honestly don’t understand that.
[Twitter Business Solutions.](https://business.twitter.com/en/solutions.html) Basically buying ads and promoted tweets.
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### Author:  [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/8 "2019-08-09T02:49:09Z")
“That shit’s not gonna trend by itself! We can help!”
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### Author:  [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/9 "2019-08-09T03:14:31Z")
According to [Veritasium](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfHeWTKjag), as of 5 years ago spending money on Facebook promotion would actually make your engagement go _down_ (basically because you’d end up with more bot followers than real people)
Wonder if anyone’s done a similar analysis for Twitter?
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/10 "2019-08-09T04:35:38Z")
We can laugh at this, but this is actually a very ominous development. Consider the fact that you now have an entire political party that is organizing to effectively punish an editorial decision of a 21st Century information platform/medium. They’re essentially saying “We don’t like what your information, so we are now, as one of the two major political parties, going to aim to shut you down” - not just as punishment, but as a warning to others.
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### Author:  [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/11 "2019-08-09T12:34:41Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#):
>
> I’m all for voting with your wallet (which appears to be what they’re doing), but this is the same group that cries ‘freedom of speech’ anytime a republican gets banned from the platform.
Even worse from a hypocrisy perspective, they also say that whenever there is a liberal boycott of a conservative business.
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### Author:  [@Slash1972](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slash1972)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/12 "2019-08-09T12:46:30Z")
> [@running\_coach](#):
>
> [Twitter Business Solutions.](https://business.twitter.com/en/solutions.html) Basically buying ads and promoted tweets.
Ah. The only time I ever go to Twitter is from links in the Trump Twitter thread. I’ve never seen an ad, didn’t even know they had them.
Thanks.
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### Author:  [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/13 "2019-08-09T12:48:52Z")
It’s another attempt to work the refs, and I sincerely hope it backfires the way the OP implies. More likely: twitter bows to the GOP, they are emboldened, we find yet another space where the rules just don’t apply to the GOP because they complained very loudly that the rules apply to them.
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### Author:  [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/14 "2019-08-09T13:15:00Z")
It’s really, really bad, and I think BPC is correct: twitter will eventually find a way to gracefully get out of this situation, which will probably involve putting up with a lot more right wing shit in the future that attempts to pass itself off as legit political discourse. We’ve already seen how the NYT rushed to post a completely misleading headline that went soft on Trump in the wake of the El Paso and Dayton shootings. This is not our imagination; the erosion of the free press starts first by getting the press used to the idea that it can’t challenge authority without expecting some sort of punishment. A free press that depends on government licenses and monitors faces the risk of having its licenses revoked. A free press that depends on financial investment have investors who find their investments threatened with either financial or political consequences. Freedom of the press begins to decline when authority can force self censorship, even if it’s ever so slight. They’ll get the press used to that idea more and more. They’ll gradually change the value system of the people who work in the press, to accept the new normal.
This is really, really bad.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/15 "2019-08-09T13:27:05Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#):
>
> It’s another attempt to work the refs, and I sincerely hope it backfires the way the OP implies. More likely: twitter bows to the GOP, they are emboldened, we find yet another space where the rules just don’t apply to the GOP because they complained very loudly that the rules apply to them.
What are you even talking about? They already unsuspended the account and I doubt anyone expects Twitter to remove their “no publishing threats of violence” rule. This is purely a stunt by the GOP to establish victimhood and remind all their followers of the liberal media bias. Come election time, I’m sure Twitter and the GOP will happily be exchanging money for services.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/16 "2019-08-09T13:36:01Z")
“The Republican Party, the Trump campaign and other GOP organizations said Thursday that they are freezing their spending on Twitter to protest the platform’s treatment of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.”
Are they going to freeze their USE of Twitter? What a meaningless little “protest”.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/17 "2019-08-09T13:38:58Z")
> [@asahi](#):
>
> It’s really, really bad, and I think BPC is correct: twitter will eventually find a way to gracefully get out of this situation, which will probably involve putting up with a lot more right wing shit in the future that attempts to pass itself off as legit political discourse.
From the tone of your post, I’m not sure you realize that the threats McConnell posted to Twitter were being made by a BLM protester towards Mitch.
[WaPo article:](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/twitter-freezes-mcconnell-campaign-account-for-posting-video-of-protesters-violent-threats/2019/08/07/a48a37e6-b95e-11e9-b3b4-2bb69e8c4e39_story.html?noredirect=on)
> [@](#):
>
> A woman, identified by the Courier-Journal as Black Lives Matter Louisville leader Chanelle Helm, is heard on the video mocking McConnell’s recent shoulder injury and saying he “should have broken his little, raggedy, wrinkled-ass neck.”
>
> She then yells, “Just stab the m----- f----- in the heart, please.” Someone also yells, “Die!”
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### Author:  [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/18 "2019-08-09T13:45:47Z")
I agree with folks here on almost everything–except that I think the initial account suspension was bullshit.
As far as I can tell, here’s how it went down:
1. Some people, very appropriately, protested outside McConnell’s house about all the awful things he’s supporting.
2. A couple of assholes in the crowd started talking in highly specific language about how they’d murder McConnell.
3. McConnell’s people videotaped them, and posted the video on Twitter as a means of delegitimizing the protestors as a group.
4. Twitter banned McConnell for posting threats.
A policy against posting threats is, of course, an excellent policy. Twitter shouldn’t let assholes use its platform to intimidate other people with violence.
But that’s not what happened here. McConnell wasn’t posting the threats in order to intimidate someone with violence. Rather, he was posting the threats to make people aware of attempts to intimidate him with violence. McConnell is a deeply terrible human being, but **this specific action** wasn’t bad.
If this policy holds true, then anyone who posts the content of the threats should have their account suspended. A protestor in the crowd said, “Just stab the motherf—er in the heart.” Should Tweets reporting that be suspended, since the Tweets contain a threat?
For that matter, one of our board rules is “Do not post threats.” Is anyone planning on reporting this post, given the threat I quoted in the previous paragraph? Does anyone think I’ll get a warning for that paragraph?
Because that would be almost precisely the same action that Twitter took. And as much as I loathe McConnell, I think this sets a terrible precedent.
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### Author:  [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/19 "2019-08-09T13:55:29Z")
Maybe they were worried people would retweet it with #notabadidea but I agree it’s a hinky suspension.
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### Author:  [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)
#### Post date: [August 9, 2019, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gop-halts-twitter-spending/838380/20 "2019-08-09T14:13:34Z")
> [@CarnalK](#):
>
> Maybe they were worried people would retweet it with #notabadidea but I agree it’s a hinky suspension.
Then suspend _those_ accounts. I agree with **LHoD** that the account suspension was bullshit. However, I would point out that there’s no reason to believe that it was some sort of targeting of conservatives. It’s not like Twitter moderating is a shining model of evenhandedness and consistency. They make any number of dumb moderation decisions across the board. Note: I’m not criticizing them, really. Moderating Twitter is a ridiculously gigantic task, and a few fuckups here and there aren’t really anything to launch a boycott over. Although, I should say that I fully approve of Republicans boycotting Twitter.
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