This is pretty much as good as you can handle a Twitter mistake, or at least one of this magnitude (pretty minor): You acknowledge what happened and you joke about it. An apology wasn’t really necessary here, since this was minor and obviously unintentional.
I will add that this entire danger does show the danger of tweeting too quickly. I’ve been a victim of this as well, and pretty recently, but if you don’t prove your tweets you can find yourself in hot water. It happens to everyone, but for your own sanity, proof your tweets before hitting that send button.
This is one of the more interesting instances I can recall of Facebook being used in a negative mailer, mainly because of the lack of proof surrounding the alleged post.
Brian Davis is a Democratic candidate for the Kansas House of Representatives, challenging Republican Representative Jan Pauls (R-Hutchinson). Pauls recently launched a mailer against Davis for a Facebook image that he allegedly shared on his Facebook page:
The controversial Facebook post appears to have come from “Armed Democrats on FB” and supposedly appeared on Davis’ candidate Facebook page in April. It shows a hooded man pointing a gun at the camera and says: “Did You know? Most of the terrorist activity in the U.S. in recent years has not come from Muslims, but from radical Christians, white supremacists and far-right militia groups.”
“Is there anything else I need to say?” appears to be Davis’ comment.
Here’s the thing: Davis denies having ever posted such a comment, and the comment doesn’t appear on his Facebook page. That’s not to say that it never appeared, however, as the comment could have been deleted. But, without proof, this comes down to a “his word against hers” situation, which makes it interesting that the mailer was launched in the first place. Of course, this is politics that we are talking about, and proof has never really mattered too much.
What this mailer does show is the dangers of Facebook for political candidates. I have no idea whether or not Davis made such a post to his Facebook page. If so, it would be pretty stupid, but as this blog has shown, people in politics do stupid things on social media all the time. If you assume, for the sake of argument, that the post did happen, then the lesson is obvious: be careful with the content that you post on your Facebook page.
If, however, you believe Davis and he never made the post, the lesson is this: social media can be another liability. You can’t prove a negative, and I can’t think of anyway to show that this post was never made, since all the evidence could be deleted. Unless Pauls actually has proof that the post was made, like a screenshot, I think Davis may have a real case for a lawsuit. This entire incident is proof that a Facebook page can be used in a negative matter, even if you never do anything negative. That’s a harsh reality of social media and politics, unfortunately.
Following up on yesterday’s entry, I want to take a look at the top six Senate races and the Twitter accounts of the various contenders. The post below checks out their various pages, as well as the amount of followers, type of content and frequency of updates. Again, the purpose of this entry is to see which campaigns are doing well on Twitter, and which aren’t. When the election is done, I’ll be very curious to compare the winners to the losers and see what role we can assign to social media – if any.
Past five pieces of content: Event picture, supporter picture, encouragement for early voting, news about minimum wage ballot petition, early voting graphics.
Past five pieces of content: Thanks to volunteers with pic, Thanks to volunteers with pic, Thanks to volunteers with pic, Thanks to volunteers with pic, Go Broncos!
Unless you are living under a rock, you know that the 2014 elections are coming up. In many states, voting has already started, and it is now standard operating procedure for any campaign to use social media to energize volunteers, solicit donations and get out the vote.
Here’s my question today: How are the various campaigns using social media? I’m going to do a few entries on this in the upcoming days and wanted to start with the 800 pound social media gorilla: Facebook.
So, to that end, let’s take a look at how the top six Senate toss-up elections are using Facebook. One quick note thought: this is just a snapshot in time about how the campaigns are using Facebook as I write this entry (which is on October 27, 2014). That being said, it’s an instructive date: there is still some persuasion going on, as well as donor solicitation, but with barely a week to go before the election, just about every campaign has moved into “get out the vote” mode.
Cover Photo: Cover page showing the faces of voters, but with a prominent graphic about Early Voting.
Past five pieces of content: A picture to change your profile to an “I voted early for Mark Begich” link, a volunteering plea, a picture of a campaign event and two newspaper endorsements.”
Frequency of updates: All within the past sixteen hours.
Cover Photo: A Hashtag (#StandWithDan) and a link with information on voting.
Past five pieces of content: A request for volunteers, information on voting early, a link to the campaign YouTube channel and two pictures of family at an events.
Frequency of updates: All within the past three days.
Cover Photo: Pryor at a campaign rally, surrounded by Pryor signs.
Past five pieces of content: Video message from Pryor after he voted early, picture of Pryor at an event, YouTube link to an ad, Bible quote and picture from an event.
Frequency of updates: All within the past three days.
Past five pieces of content: Advertisement for an event, YouTube link to an ad, pictures from en event, link to a campaign ad and campaign picture/graphic.
Past five pieces of content: Encouragement for people to mail in their ballot, Event pictures, “Inside look” video at campaign event, picture from campaign event and encouragement for people to mail in their ballot.
Past five pieces of content: Link encouraging people to vote, link encouraging people to vote, ad, picture that people can use showing that they voted, cover photo that people can use showing that they support Gardner.
Cover Photo: Pink Ribbon with the text “I’m with Mary” and an image of Louisiana.
Past five pieces of content: Event pictures, event pictures, news story, event pictures and an “I voted for Mary” logo that can be used as a profile picture.
Past five pieces of content: Ad (which was pinned to the top – only candidate I’ve seen use this), event pictures, event pictures, event pictures, event pictures.
Nick Muzin is Ted Cruz’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Muzin has a Twitter account which isn’t very active, and after his recent experiences, I expect that Muzin wishes he had kept it that way.
Last Thursday, Muzin sent out this brilliant tweet:
Just…gahh. I mean, really.
Muzin deleted the tweet shortly after it was sent. He then sent out this explanation:
Earlier tweet was a bad joke, my sarcasm did not translate well online. Deleted.
I’m actually inclined to believe Muzin, if only for one one reason: I simply cannot imagine that any member of the human race would be so stupid as to think that the tweet Muzin sent out was factual.
The tweet did Cruz and Muzin no favors, and earned them national coverage on a variety of websites and papers, including Mediate, The Hill, the Washington Post and MSNBC. Perhaps most importantly for Cruz is that the tweet also earned him press in his home state of Texas.
Context is important to remember here, and I mean that in a few ways. Had a Democrat sent out an identical tweet, I think most people would have recognized it as a bad joke. The fact that it came from a staffer to Senator Ted Cruz made the tweet seem much worse, as it is at least possible that Senator Cruz and his supporters could believe such a ridiculous statement.
Furthermore, with only 140 characters to work with, this tweet seems like an insanely stupid joke, no matter who it came from. Again, context is important, and it’s difficult to recognize this tweet as a joke, particularly given that it came from a Senator Cruz staffer. If there is any general lesson to learn here, it’s that you have to be VERY clear with your meanings on Twitter, and that your political opponents will never give you the benefit of the doubt. To that end, use jokes carefully!
For the life of me, I can’t understand what’s happening here.
The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) is a conservative think tank dedicated to “producing leading research in several key policy areas that weave a tapestry of the organization’s core beliefs: respect and support for the power of free enterprise, a strong defense centered on smart international relations, and opportunity for all to achieve the American dream.” It is certainly one of the more prominent think tanks in this country and is regularly involved in the political debate.
The above paragraph begs the question: why the heck are they getting involved in a conversation about date rape, and why are they minimizing the subject?
Earlier this week, AEI posted this video from its YouTube channel:
Uhh….
The video opens with, “Ladies, have you been told not to drink the punch at parties? Have you asked a friend to watch your drink because you are afraid to leave it alone, even for a moment…There are ‘supposedly’ predators…..”
And look, computer simulated stills!
You can’t make this stuff up. I wish it was made up, but it’s not.
The video goes on to downplay the threat of date rape drugs, saying, “Most commonly, victims of drug-facilitated sexual assault are severely intoxicated, often from their own volition.”
From all reports, the claims made in the video are incorrect. 25% of all women report that drugs were a factor in their rape – not a small number by any stretch of the imagination.
According to the Huffington Post, “conservative pundits have been leading the backlash” against the Obama Administrations push to reduce sexual assaults on college campuses. So, this video would seem to be part of that response.
I guess that begs the question: really? Really? The President of the United States is trying to make women on college campuses safe from sexual assault, and there are some out there who are opposed to such a mission? This is one of the most bizarre uses of YouTube I’ve ever seen – the topic is strange and the odd computer animation seems like something out of a Saturday Night Live skit that airs close to the conclusion of the program, when most of the viewers have already gone to bed. I cannot believe that there are groups out there which think this is a good use of resources. The social media lesson here? Stick to areas that matter and won’t cause a backlash.
For the second time, an incident with the Carl DeMaio Congressional campaign is causing me to write a blog entry. DeMaio is challenging Congressman Scott Peters (D-CA). His campaign had been previously featured in the blog when he hired a staffer, retweeted the new staff members excited tweet about his new job, and then discovered that the staffer had previously sent off a series of racist and offensive tweets. More recently, DeMaio has been accused of sexual harassment and then trying to pay off his accuser (its worth noting that the criminal investigation into that complaint has been closed due to a lack of evidence).
Anyway, in today’s entry, it has recently come to light that DeMaio sent out this Email to two staffers. I’m not including the picture – if you want to see it, click the link. The picture itself features an overweight woman, in a bra, eating a chicken nugget.
Kate Lyon, whose name is in the subject, is the Deputy Campaign Manager for the Scott Peters’ campaign. Apparently, DeMaio thinks she is overweight, and decided to mock her with this Email (the woman pictured is not Kate Lyon). It came to light after Todd Bosnich, former DeMaio policy director, released it to the public. Incidentally, Bosnich is the staffer who has accused DeMaio of sexual harassment. Said Bosnich:
Me and Dave [other person on the Email] were pretty shocked because we both know Kate, and while we don’t agree with her politically she is very well respected on both sides. Neither of us responded,” Bosnich told TPM that he and McCulluch didn’t respond to the email.
Needless to say, the Peters campaign was not happy. In a statement, spokesman Alex Roth said:
Kate Lyon is one of the most experienced and respected members of our staff. She previously worked as an attorney, and for NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood. It is disgusting and despicable that this champion for women’s rights, or any woman, would be demeaned this way. I wish I could say it is shocking, but coming from Carl DeMaio, nothing is shocking.
I can’t find a comment from DeMaio on the Email, so it appears to me that he didn’t respond, but…wow. It’s a deeply offensive Email and certainly reveals a lack of respect for women, as far as I am concerned. It also reveals a secondary lesson: don’t put anything offensive in digital format. As a recent scandal in my home state has taught us, once again, don’t ever write anything digitally that you’d be uncomfortable seeing on the front page of your local newspaper.
