Jaybird

Jaybird is Birdmojo on Xbox Live and Jaybirdmojo on Playstation's network. He's been playing consoles since the Atari 2600 and it was Zork that taught him how to touch-type. If you've got a song for Wednesday, a commercial for Saturday, a recommendation for Tuesday, an essay for Monday, or, heck, just a handful a questions, fire off an email to AskJaybird-at-gmail.com

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86 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    To be perfectly honest, I do think that his twitter feed is a historical document and ought to be made available to the public to read.

    I mean, I understand the arguments why he can’t have access to it anymore and I understand the arguments for why it shouldn’t be readable for the next few months or so…

    But I think it should be readable in the future.Report

    • North in reply to Jaybird says:

      I’d agree. At a bare minimum the whole thing should be archived in the Trump Presidential Library.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird says:

      I believe that the Presidential Records Act, as amended, required Twitter to maintain permanent copies. This is the kind of thing that the Legal Department gets paid their big bucks to know in advance and insist be done — failure to comply is a “risk the company” sort of thing.Report

      • Damon in reply to Michael Cain says:

        Just because they “should” know what to do to comply legally doesn’t mean that actually do. Reference Patreon and it’s legal issues.Report

        • Jaybird in reply to Damon says:

          Half of patreon’s problems come from stuff like Mastercard/Visa saying “if you have people doing the following things, you won’t be able to use Visa/Mastercard” and then Patreon saying “nope”. Not really a legal issue, not really.

          Aella Girl on twitter (warning, she’s a cam girl though her twitter account is mostly worksafe otherwise) has a nice discussion about this sort of thing:

          Read her whole thread. It’s interesting.Report

  2. Jaybird says:

    For the record: Stock price of Twitter, as of this moment, is $51.48.Report

  3. Michael Cain says:

    There seems to be a race whether some of Trump’s more vocal followers can cancel their Twitter accounts before they are banned.

    Reportedly, Apple has given Parler 24 hours to implement a moderation scheme or the app will be removed from the App Store. For those who don’t remember, Apple’s terms of service allow them to remove installed copies of the app from the phones if it’s banned from the store.Report

  4. Chip Daniels says:

    I sensed a great disturbance in the Force, as if 75 million twits cried out, and were silenced.
    But it was just gas.Report

  5. Marchmaine says:

    Heh, suspending Trump’s account two weeks before he’s out of power is the Elaine Chao of suspensions.Report

  6. Jaybird says:

    An interesting thought experiment:

    Report

  7. Marchmaine says:

    On the whole Platform vs. Publisher vs. Club question… I’d consider introducing a new test for platform status: an open standard. That is, if the content generated on your platform is fully open for other services to write to, consume and distribute and curate… then you are a platform. Breaks-up the thorny/sticky issue of network effect and competition.

    You can keep club status up to a certain point… beyond a certain number of subscribers, we’re obviously not a club so either a publisher or platform… so decide if the value of a monopoly of a limited set of users/content is more important than the value of a large platform business where the content/users are not monopolized.

    There’s a lot more with regards content ownership and privacy… but moving towards business friendly models that offer protections where protections are warranted, keep competition in the forefront, and allow a platform to monetize its platform status as it gives up its user/content network/monopoly.Report

    • InMD in reply to Marchmaine says:

      I don’t have a problem with the idea but I’m not sure it addresses the issue driving the argument. Like how does it change the incentives of any business that accepts platform status? And while I don’t think platforms should be liable for the torts of the content posters I’m also not sure the price of protection should be allowing mass misinformation or acting as a channel for commands to engage in criminal activity.

      The operative question is who has discretion, the business (which may act capriciously) or the state via regulatory incentives. To paraphrase Rush, even if that state is telling platforms they may no longer decide they still have made a choice.

      Edit: unless maybe I’m misreading you and the price isn’t giving up discretion, but rather creating interoperability with competing platforms?Report

      • Marchmaine in reply to InMD says:

        Well, so much for my plan to cut/paste/send to Ajit Pai with a note: problem solved in a comment, dude.

        I guess I’d put it this way, we should stop ignoring that there aren’t tech races to establish platforms/protocols with winners/losers. On the one hand, we want to encourage Tech Races, and we live with winners/losers. But we still have to make sure that when Winners win they monetize the value not the moat. So at some point having won the network-effect race, we allow the monetization at the transaction level, not at the network level… so phase 2 of a healthy capitalism allows other folks to build businesses on top of platforms that are regulated to provide platform status.

        It’s a bit like electricity vs. electricities… or a phone network vs. networks… that’s what the original 230 was meant to address… the network backbone… but we’ve moved forward from mere electricity to mere communication protocols to mere network exchanges… and the network exchanges can be local/small/curated or broad/open/transactional. When you win, you win the transaction war… but at the expense of the curated content/data owner wars.

        That’s why I’m not a simple repeal-230 guy… there are rewards and incentives we want to keep, and incentives we want to discourage… with the idea being that you monetize the value not the monopoly.Report

  8. Jaybird says:

    And then it hit me: Tech allows for the long march through the institutions to take shortcuts:

    Report

  9. Damon says:

    Sometimes freedom dies in small doses mostly hidden from view…other times it dies big in full view of people watching it and cheering.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Damon says:

      Last I checked private companies could pretty much do whatever they want, especially when they decide an client has violated their terms of service. Not sure that’s an impingement on freedom however.Report

      • Damon in reply to Philip H says:

        These companies are, essentially, monopolies. Most of the times the left has been very anti monopoly. What gives? These platforms have massive user bases and a certain subset is being negatively impacted by deplatforms, etc. where migrating new a new/different platform is a challenge (now impossible since Parer is gone)Report

        • Michael Cain in reply to Damon says:

          Under US anti-trust law, being a monopoly is not illegal. But being classified a monopoly in court makes certain business behaviors illegal. The first step in any anti-trust proceeding is to define the market that has been monopolized. Back in the 1990s, everyone was surprised when the federal courts agreed that “desktop computer operating systems” was a market. Once they did, there was no question about Microsoft engaging in illegal behavior, the only question was what the remedy would be. I am fairly eager to see what “market” Facebook is accused of monopolizing.Report

    • Jesse in reply to Damon says:

      Cool, can I come to your house and crap on your living room floor with no repercussions? Cause otherwise, you’re limiting my freedom.Report

      • Brandon Berg in reply to Jesse says:

        You live in Seattle, right? Or was that a different Jesse? Anyway, right now Seattle has a fairly significant problem with people literally crapping on the commons. Not quite in people’s homes, but close enough. And a lot of people in your ideological vicinity are saying that stopping them from doing so would be limiting their freedom.

        So…you’re not wrong about this particular issue, but man, that’s an unfortunate choice of metaphor.Report

        • Oscar Gordon in reply to Brandon Berg says:

          But don’t worry, I have it on good authority that Seattle city government doesn’t cater to Progressives at all.Report

        • DavidTC in reply to Brandon Berg says:

          It sure is weird the response called for is police instead of public restrooms.Report

          • Oscar Gordon in reply to DavidTC says:

            They tried public restrooms, they were taken over and used for drugs, dealing, and (IIRC) prostitution.

            What they need is housing and social services.Report

            • Philip H in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

              Seems like you could get money from that somewhere . . . .Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to Philip H says:

                They have money, what they don’t have is space.Report

              • North in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                They have the space, what they also have is NIMBY’s.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to North says:

                If you have space, but are effectively barred from using it, you don’t actually have space now, do you?

                (I am painfully aware of the NIMBYs in the area)Report

              • North in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

                I’m probably just overly cynical/bitter about my own tribe and housing construction policy but I feel like that reasoning lets local government, and NIMBY off the hook too easy. The space is there. The technology exists. The economics are sound. There’s no mountain blocking construction, no surging ocean burying the land.

                People are crapping in the parks and the sidewalks because too many well off, comfortable and by and large liberal people don’t want housing density, use their votes and influence to block it via regulation and tell themselves “hey I toss those bums a fiver when I see them at the intersection, that’s enough money for a tent and drugs so my conscience is clear”.Report

              • Oscar Gordon in reply to North says:

                I hear ya. I’m just saying that it doesn’t really matter why the space is not accessible at the moment, just that it is, and until that is dealt with, you don’t have space.Report

  10. Slade the Leveller says:

    How big do you think the intersection is between people who applauded Masterpiece Cakeshop and people whining about the Trump Twitter ban? My money is on a null set.Report

    • “Let’s establish a rule.”
      “Okay, let’s establish it.”
      “Let’s apply the rule.”
      “Okay, let’s apply the rule.”
      “Let’s apply a different rule elsewhere.”
      “Let’s not.”
      “WHY DO YOU HATE RULES, HYPOCRITE?”Report

      • Pinky in reply to Jaybird says:

        “I’d like a cake.”
        “No, and there are no other cake shops in the world.”
        “I’m going to complain about this on social media.”
        “Go ahead, there are many platforms with equal market influence.”Report

  11. Jaybird says:

    It begins:

    Report

  12. Pinky says:

    I just made a similar comment on another thread, but it belongs here more. These moves greatly increase the likelihood of a Trump news network. He craves attention, and he has followers, but if he’d remained on Twitter he would have been just another noisemaker. But this gives him a cause and a need for a new platform.Report

    • Stillwater in reply to Pinky says:

      These moves greatly increase the likelihood of a Trump news network.

      Does Twitter care about that? Should Twitter care about that?Report

    • greginak in reply to Pinky says:

      Well he would have to be able to run a money making business which has never been his strong point. At some point at least, he would try to do it with other peoples money. But that is the free market.Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to Pinky says:

      These moves greatly increase the likelihood of a Trump news network.

      What will Trump’s role at this network be? License the use of his name for $X million per year? Provide all the extra cash that will be necessary to keep it afloat for the first few years? Hands-on management like Murdoch in the early days? Live on-screen daily talent? Once per week pre-recorded heavily edited show?

      You could convince me about the first one. The others, those seem like huge stretches for today’s Trump.Report

    • Douglas Hayden in reply to Pinky says:

      (Mis-hit the report and not the reply button again, gah. I’m having a day.)

      There was a thread on Twitter some weeks back detailing how this would work: That Trump could demand – and get – an exclusive contract with Newsmax or OANN that would basically break their bank as they couldn’t bring in the ratings to support it. My added thought was this turns Trump from content to competitor, even more so now after Wednesday.

      And in any case, I’m not sure how much of a network presence he’ll get camped out in Rio or Moscow. RT guest contributor?Report

  13. greginak says:

    Well he would have to be able to run a money making business which has never been his strong point. At some point at least, he would try to do it with other peoples money. But that is the free market.Report

  14. Fish says:

    The only thing more annoying than the people whinging about “ThE fIRsT aMeNdMeNt” is knowing that most of the whingers know full well that it doesn’t apply here, and that they’re just winding people up and fundraising.Report

  15. Jaybird says:

    Per the International Business Times, Donald Trump is being removed from Home Alone 2 to be replaced by Christopher Plummer.Report

  16. Stillwater says:

    Hilarious. Apple and Google just pulled the Parler app because it has too many posts encouraging violence.

    Pulling a social media app where conservatives can freely incite violence against politicians and media personalities will, of course, only widen our already existing divisions. Think about that…Report

  17. Jaybird says:

    Golf? Not anymore!

    Report

  18. Jaybird says:

    Adjacent:

    Report

    • Oscar Gordon in reply to Jaybird says:

      Better late than never, but really, how many junk lawsuits does a guy have to file before the bar takes action?Report

      • CJColucci in reply to Oscar Gordon says:

        The New York State Bar Association has nothing to say about who is or isn’t a lawyer in New York State and doesn’t discipline them, unlike some states that have what is called a “mandatory bar association.” Lawyer status is regulated by the state court system. (The administrative setup is unclear to me and uninteresting unless you face potential bar discipline or represent someone who does.) NYSBA is essentially a trade association and business networking outfit that NY lawyers may join or not as they see fit. Although I haven’t studied NYSBA’s rules on membership, I assume it can dump members it finds undesirable, and that its in-house lawyers know what hoops it has to jump through to do that.
        That said, other than embarrassment, the main effect of being thrown out of NYSBA is that you are no longer eligible for member discounts on publications, continuing legal education, and what-have-you. I’m not so sure about sponsored insurance.Report

    • Jaybird in reply to Jaybird says:

      Frogs, Scorpions…

      Report

  19. Jaybird says:

    Unintended Consequences:

    I started a Twitter account this summer that would automatically give a snarky reply back to anything Trump put out on Twitter. I grew the account to over 100,000 followers quickly and was selling anti Trump and pro democrat shirts, hats, and trinkets. His Twitter just got banned and now my main source of growing this account and business is done. What can I do to continue to monetize this account or is it over? Thanks in advance.

    Further down the thread:

    I will try with Eric and Ivanka and see how it goes. I’m not sure how much more time I want to invest with less than 2 weeks left of him being president. Trumps was also extremely easy I could just tweet something simple like What about the kids in the cages every 7 tweets. It didn’t matter what he tweeted about people would still engage with my content.

    I’ve tried with Democrats that are active and have large followings but Twitter bans those almost immediately. I don’t know if it’s political bias or their followers are quicker to report me.

    I’ve been wondering if there are going to be weird side effects to banning Emmanuel Goldstein.

    There’s a lot of catharsis that comes in keeping him around and, if Trump is skilled at anything, it’s in maintaining the two minutes for just another 15 seconds more.Report

  20. Jaybird says:

    Banking:

    Report

    • Michael Cain in reply to Jaybird says:

      Signature Bank is posturing: they are closing Trump’s two personal accounts with them. According to his disclosure forms, Trump has personal accounts (ie, checking, saving, money market, small trust) at several US banks. The big break with US banks happened years ago, when they quite lending money to Trump, the Trump Organization, or any projects in which those were involved.

      I don’t recall the FDIC rules about demand deposit accounts at all. I’m not sure that Signature can arbitrarily terminate client accounts.Report