Digital Politics Quick Hits: December 11, 2018

Good stories from the past few weeks.

• Town hall? 120 people. Live-streamed chicken dinner? 257,000 views on Facebook. “Democratic strategists say the quest to capture the attention of Democrats online, through social streams and viral sharing that exude a sense of immediacy and authenticity, could dominate the early months in a crowded field, as energized voters subscribe and swipe in search of a candidate match.” Via Shaun Dakin.
• Anti-Trump protests gave way to local fervor that helped turn Wisconsin back to blue. Including plenty of digital organizing. C.f. How the Democrats Took Back Michigan. “A Democratic tsunami in the midterms engulfed the state Trump won most narrowly in 2016—and could keep the state blue in 2020.”
• ‘Nothing on this page is real’: How lies become truth in online America. File this one under, “people who are not helping.”
• Agents of doubt. “How a powerful Russian propaganda machine chips away at Western notions of truth.”
• China’s application of AI should be a Sputnik moment for the U.S. But will it be? C.f. China’s ‘responsive’ authoritarianism. “Authoritarian participatory persuasion”, anyone?
• How Disinformation and Conspiracy Culture Are Disenfranchising Young Voters.
• Congresswoman to Google CEO: Why when I search ‘idiot’ do I get pictures of Trump? C.f. Why Republicans pretend that Google searches are biased against them.
• How a Chinese immigrant used WeChat to win a seat in the Maryland statehouse. Read carefully, though: it sounds as though phone calls and personal meetings were the core of her strategy.
• How Brad Parscale, once a ‘nobody in San Antonio,’ shaped Trump’s combative politics and rose to his inner circle. “With his early war chest and a database of 20 million Trump supporters, Parscale is poised to launch a massive reelection operation that he expects will raise $1 billion — three times what the campaign collected in 2016. Rather than lean on Facebook to reach supporters, he plans to rely heavily on email, cellphone texts and apps.”
• Republicans using MAGA rallies to build Trump army for 2020. Smart list-building.
• How Mariah Carey’s 2001 Flop Glitter Surged to the Top of the Charts 17 Years Later. A fan advocacy campaign!
• The Stylish Socialist Who Is Trying to Save YouTube from Alt-Right Domination.
• Democrats Built A Small-Donor Money Machine. Now, Republicans Want Their Own.
• ‘I don’t regret a thing’: Democrats aim to keep small-donor boom going in 2020.
• Democratic, GOP super PACs quadruple fundraising as big-money groups’ influence grows. But will scammers move in on their turf?
• MoveOn’s Social Media Experiment: Can Facebook Ads Actually Persuade People to Vote Differently?
• A Mysterious Imposter Account Was Used On Facebook To Drum Up Support For The Migrant Caravan, via Laura Packard.
• ‘A Lot at Stake.’ Inside the Grassroots Efforts to Mobilize Hundreds of Black Voters in Georgia.
• 5 Relational Organizing Lessons From The Midterms.
• A digital revolution is reshaping Democratic campaigns. “These campaigns treat digital not just as a place to spam eyeballs, but as a space for organizing.” C.f. Democrats Uber-ized Activism. Can It Win Them The Midterms?
• Trade Group Successfully Targeted Voters On Waze Ahead Of Midterms.
• Why Winning The Smart Speaker Vote Is The Next Digital Frontier. Alexa, for whom should I vote?
• Exclusive: Emails of top NRCC officials stolen in major 2018 hack.
• Text Emerged As A Top Tool In 2018 As Democrats Take House, GOP Holds Senate. Good usage stats, and c.f. Boosting Your GOTV Texting Program.
• Republicans and Democrats are using phone apps to recruit. A look at GOP Envoy.
• Hola, Soy Gema: How Undocumented Immigrants Are Using Facebook Messenger To Build A Movement.
• Did Facebook Cause Riots in France?Cause? No. Enable? Yes — just as it has nearly every other political movement in the past decade.
• The democratic world could feel the heat from Paris. “By contrast, the members of this new social movement, if it can correctly be described as a movement, did not meet in real-life institutions. Instead, they found one another on the Internet, through social media and online petitions that can create new groups and identities from one day to the next.”
• Climate Denial Was the Crucible for Trumpism. All the way down to stolen emails!
• Trump’s Lies Are a Virus, and News Organizations Are the Host. It’s all about the clicks, baby.
• Facebook’s Sandberg now says the company’s work with the political consultancy Definers crossed her desk, Everything Facebook Admitted Just Before Thanksgiving When No One Would Notice and How Facebook’s PR Firm Used a Conservative News Site to Fiercely Attack Its Rivals. C.f. The moral and ethical rot at Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg’s Facebook.
• ‘Alarming’: Soros calls for investigation of Facebook after report of a smear campaign.
• Facebook Employees Are So Paranoid They’re Using Burner Phones to Talk to Each Other.
• Embattled and in over his head, Mark Zuckerberg should — at least — step down as Facebook chairman.
• The Decline and Fall of the Zuckerberg Empire. “Some empires fall because they’re invaded from the outside or rot from within. Zuckerberg’s could be the first in history to collapse simply because its citizens logged out.”
• Facebook faces fresh lashing from nine countries for its inability to stop the spread of fake news.
• When the Tech Mythology Collapses. What the railroads can teach us.
• New App Makes It Easier than Ever to Shame Your Friends and Family into Voting.
• Obscure Concealed-Carry Group Spent Millions on Facebook Political Ads, via Shaun Dakin.
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wore clothing, a journalist tweeted a photo, and the Internet pounced.
• A true human tragedy: Sarah Palin mocks Ocasio-Cortez’s ‘basic civics’ knowledge, falls into Twitter ratio abyss.
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is changing the way politicians use social media, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Using Instagram Stories to Lift the Veil on Congress and It’s Genius.
• Rudy Giuliani’s typo became an anti-Trump message. He blamed Twitter, but this Atlanta man pranked him. No, he was not hacked. Yes, he was mocked.
• Ivanka Trump Used Personal Email Account to Conduct Official White House Business. And we have already forgotten about it.
• Instagram Is the New Evite, at least if you’re in high school. Implications for mobilization work with younger voters?
• New Study Indicates Silicon Valley’s Elite Are Not As Liberal As They Think. Not big fans of the regulation, they are.
• John Postill on his new book, The Rise of Nerd Politics.
• Tumblr’s porn ban is depressing. Here’s why. “Mourning Tumblr’s pornographic content is more than mourning sexy GIFs. It’s mourning openness.”
• Far-right activist Laura Loomer handcuffs herself to Twitter HQ. “The activist said she planned on staying there all night — but asked to be freed shortly after.”
• The NRA and Trump Campaign Appeared to Use the Exact Same Media Consultant to Coordinate Their 2016 Campaign Ads, Which Is Not Legal. Unclear if this involved digital or just TV.
• Your Taste in Jeans May Have Influenced the Election. In which a reporter takes Cambridge Analytica’s bait. C.f. Don’t Give Cambridge Analytica Too Much Credit.
• Too Much Stigma, Not Enough Persuasion. “The conflict over a liberal blogger’s criticism of the use of the term ‘white supremacy’ provides a case study in how not to win friends and influence people.” An older piece, but new to me.
• How YouTube’s Algorithm Really Works.
• Facebook discloses possible election meddling by Russia, foreign actors on eve of midterms.
• “Despite Donald Trump’s vaunted digital efforts, Facebook appears to have played a secondary role in the midterms.”.
• Military Cyber Teams [Were] On Standby For Elections.
• Forget the Russians. On this Election Day, it’s Americans peddling disinformation and hate speech.
• What Candidates [Were] Talking About in Online Ads. In Google Ads, at least.
• Stephen Miller’s Biggest Gamble Yet. A look back at Trump’s pre-election racist digital video.
• People on Twitter [Were] Still Intentionally Telling Voters Election Day Is Nov. 7.
• Will ‘Deepfakes’ Disrupt The Midterm Election? They didn’t (that we know of), but this is a good reminder of the potential.
• A top aide to Rep. Jeff Fortenberry made a stink about a Facebook like. Now the Ethics Committee is involved.
• Top 3 Mobile (SMS) Trends in 2018: Mobile Fundraising.
• When Influencer Marketing goes bad: How Hackers Are Stealing High-Profile Instagram Accounts. And of course, the victims usually have no recourse.
• Mitch McConnell wrote an op-ed calling for bipartisanship, and people (on Twitter) are not having it.
• Fox News’s Silent War on Twitter.
• YouTube’s Biggest Personality Promoted an Anti-Semite.
• Did a Twitter User Scam MAGA Fans Out of Thousands of Dollars?
• Mobile (SMS): Peer-to-Peer vs. Broadcast.
• Postcards from the left: Resistance groups take aim at Trump, one letter at a time. Who says print is dead?
• We’ll go with “yes”: The White House’s Acosta Video Looks Different From the Original. Does That Mean It’s “Manipulated”?.
• Facebook says it removed a flood of hate speech, terrorist propaganda and fake accounts from its site. More than a BILLION accounts.
• The NRA told doctors to mind their business. Then a man shot up a hospital. #ThisIsOurLane.
• New effort promises 1,000 trained Democratic staffers for 2020.
• The Direct Gaze of Maria Meza, the Woman in a Viral Photo from the Border.
• Party Leadership Duped Voters With Millions for ‘Dubious’ Midterm Ads, Report Finds. Including digital.
• Midterms Proved Grassroots Is Key For 2019 Advocacy.
• How The Market For Advocacy Software Is Shifting. Good overview.
• Moving Social Media Forward Ahead Of Next Year’s European Elections.
• Three tips for last-minute digital videos.
• How To Craft A Fundraising Ask Around The Holidays.
• New Evidence Emerges of Steve Bannon and Cambridge Analytica’s Role in Brexit. Upon reading, not much here to chew on.
• Washington state lawmaker Matt Shea defends advocacy for ‘Holy Army’ as Spokane sheriff refers his writings to FBI.
• Nadir of Modernity Reached as Israeli Military Complains About Iran on Twitter via Cutesy Reference to Tinder.
• And finally: Bannon Pulls Out of Conference on Sex Robots. Early withdrawal?

Too much is never enough? Check out previous Quick Hits editions.

– cpd