Odd Business at Twitter

By: Stephen_Merrill

In today’s political world, there is one place everyone must join, even without a Facebook account.

Twitter is the online platform that has become the singular global square for interactive discussion of political people and events.  Surprisingly, Twitter has no real competition as the titan for this niche in the West and well beyond.   The far smaller Reddit does not have the focus on politics that Twitter offers, though you will find on Reddit far better discussion of public policy issues.  Facebook’s market-share in this space has steadily diminished.

Twitter’s top-dog status on political talk is also in place when compared to platforms that concentrate on a single country’s own market.  None match Twitter’s usage in those countries. 

Twitter at first helped make Donald Trump the President without really trying to.  Then Trump became the guarantor of Twitter’s dominance in its marketplace, despite Twitter’s Leftist identity. 

This is all very odd, indeed.

Jumping the Shark
Many fortnights ago, this author joined the debate at Twitter, despite earlier pledges that I will never “tweet” since it is sounds so unmanly. StephenMerrill@StephenMerrillAk 

Twitter is the arena, after all.

Naturally from the outset, my tweeting was freedom-fighting across the board in a political world dominated by corrupt collectivism. The 4200 and running tweets tend to concentrate on war and peace and therefore protesting the Washington War Party’s ravaging of the world and of the global reputation of the United States.

I try to be the scourge for Mike Pompeo, John Bolton, Little Marco, Max Boot, Bill Krystol and Lawrence Tribe, all oarsmen along the River Styxx.  I have a special place for Psycho Joe Scarborough and Mean Mika Brzezinski.

So, the libertarian viewpoint of Twitter’s Grizzly Lover was obvious from the beginning.

Odd Business

After slowly attracting several hundred followers on Twitter, I noticed something quite distressing.  My tweets were only being distributed to a couple of dozen hashtags.  My assumption had been that, like Facebook, my tweets would go to my followers at least, and hopefully to many others also. 
I had no way of knowing who the few people were who were receiving my tweets, whether followers or someone else.   This led to the notion that I did not know whether my tweets truly arrived anywhere, aside from receiving the replies and likes.

Looking thoroughly through the Twitter rules posted online, I left with zero information about how your tweet distribution is supposed to flow.

So, I decided to bribe the tiger now, as so many prompts from Twitter ask you to do.  Paying Twitter directly may be the only way to create my own Twitterati I thought, even the only way to reach my own followers. 
After all, for a mere $100 Twitter promised to deliver my tweet, any tweet, to 48,000 hashtags.

Naturally, I selected the most compelling tweet that a broad range of people might be attracted to.  The campaign is completed over 2-3 days.

A few dozen new followers then signed up.  Two repeat purchases accomplished about the same.

The frustrating thing I discovered was that my promoted tweets were only going to 12,000 to 15,000 hashtags! This is about a 75% breach of contract by Twitter.

I then discovered there is no way at the web site to contest or even discuss a Twitter ad payment with the company.  I challenge anyone to find an email link, phone number or postal address to contact Twitter about disputed promotions.

Fighting Back Anyway
Of course, a lawsuit to recover half of $300 is more bother than benefit and seems a bit petty.  Even determining the state court with jurisdiction for a suit over Twitter promotions is a dicey question.

But there is more than one way to right such a wrong. This time the best alternative method completely succeeded.
Consumers need to know the protections provided by paying vendors with a credit card.  The strongest privilege by far is a “rough and ready” smalls claims court for use by any customer, disputing payments by challenge within 60-days.  The grounds for dispute may be nonperformance, partial nonperformance, inferior product or fraud.

You may not know your seller online at all, but Visa and Mastercard are holding their money spigot subject to their rules.

So, I made the three disputes with my credit card account, alleging a large partial nonperformance for my Twitter promotions.  Twitter did not file a reply within 2-weeks. So, the disputes were all successful, as the rules clearly called-for in any event.

Most key here, over the very days this was happening my Twitter following suddenly went down by almost half.  This is the way Twitter fights back obviously.

So, I decided my further response would be to prove with direct evidence that Twitter treats libertarians entirely different from its favored Leftists, a totally rigged platform.

So, trying to keep my name out of it, I arranged a Twitter account as a Bernie Sanders supporter.  I was determined to find out if even the most clueless Leftism rules by fiat on Twitter.

With some initial progress, the project failed.  I simply could not go online day after day to spout absurd notions about people and money. So, there is no valid data base.

Generally, if my Twitter posts decline in number, so does my followership, as if programmed at a certain pace.  The same works in reverse by greatly increasing the number of tweets, always in a seemingly programmed way.
An Enterprise for Profit?

Here is a company that seems wholly concerned with ideology, even to the point of purposely refusing to do its job for customers who have far different political views. 
Twitter strangles the comprehensive debate on its platform that could explode the company’s appeal and revenues, as the Twitter business plan seeks to accomplish as a formal matter.  Indeed, the number of annual tweets has been declining generally since 2014, obviously due to terrible business sense.

Though the cofounder and CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, through 2017 did not take a salary from Twitter for his efforts, the lack of those wages has not prevented Dorsey from being a huge donor to the US Democratic Party.

Emerging from ten years of bottom-line losses dating from Twitter ‘s beginning, and now with the commercial power of the Oval Office still wholly at its back, Twitter has claimed a profitable year for the first time, some $1.2B in net revenues in 2018.  That sounds great until you consider that in the 2010-2017 period Twitter managed to lose $2.6b. This brings Twitter’s profit-loss performance overall to a $1.4b loss, as of the beginning of 2019.

The failure of Twitter to capitalize in profits on its dominant market-share has not dampened spirits on Wall Street for Twitter though.  The company presently has a $4.7b value for 4000 employees distributing SMS texts, just as so many web sites do with basic software.  
It is as if many of the powerful people know there is so much more working behind the scenes at Twitter.
The Trump on Twitter Mystery

What leaves Trump supporters mystified is why the President apparently is never going to leave extreme left-wing Twitter.  One would naturally expect a conservative, rabble-rousing President not to continue to empower the opposition in such a grand way. 
What is there to possibly gain in Trump not simply saying “go for it”, let conservatives now have their own place within the social media business with his daily support? 

Also, where is the conservatives’ alternative platform to Twitter in any event, even without Trump directly backing the move?  The platform could be launched in a flash. 

After all, half of the potential customers in political America and beyond are being ripped off and lied to by Twitter? 

With a conservative alternative in operation and other political platforms coming, Twitter would then be headed the way of the dinosaur, given the way it conducts business.  Indeed, the President himself could then be quickly forced to abandon Twitter, a death-knell for Dorsey ever getting that Twitter salary again.

What is the catch then that keeps Twitter the centerpiece?  Is someone in Washington purposely scaring away venture capital from such a seemingly excellent business opportunity?

The Common Answer to the Oddest Things

The only available explanation for this conundrum is stated in a single word: imperialism.  This recognition also confirms that the Washington War Party demands that Twitter remain the dominant political platform.  No one dares try to change things.

Because imperialism unites Trump, Pelosi and Schumer, the Deep State, the Pentagon and the spy agencies.  US Imperialism by any means is favored by almost all the US billionaires, who also happen to own the nation now.

Because billionaires are the only beneficiaries of the US wars going back to the Vietnam war. 

Billionaires own the arms manufacturers, among the most profitable of global businesses quite perversely. 

Billionaires own the fossil fuel extraction companies that love to offer smaller nations deals they simply cannot refuse.

Billionaires own the banks that rule the fiat USD financial system that is the central enduring power of the US empire.  As Saddam and Ghaddafi learned, the USD dominance is directly tied to the threat of military invasion for noncompliance by renegade nations to the New World Order.  Under instruction now are Iran and Venezuela.

To facilitate this show of horrors, the billionaires own the news media that over 90% of Americans consume.  The sophistry for war has been wall-to-wall for decades now. 

The more centralized the official narrative, the greater its spell.  The control of the dissemination of information is central to empire building. 

Only one basic news source is the ideal, especially at times of growing economic failure for the masses.  Were information to splinter in all directions it would be disastrous to Empire management.

Service to the Modern Gods

The building skills of the human have always been very impressive.  But the ability to puncture oppressive political ideology has always been sorely lacking.  This dual nature is what led to Egyptians building great pyramids all to the vanity of a single person.  It has led to a modern world that is corrupted by war and poverty, when humanity should have long ago overcome these basic weaknesses, all remaining in place now for the benefit of a tiny fraction of society.

So, Jack Dorsey is prominent within the propaganda department of the Psycho Empire. He manages information for the illuminati.  His job is entirely secure, about written-in-stone.  He works closely with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Sundar Pichai of Google, too closely.

Though the pay is good for propaganda work like Jack’s, wherever it comes from, Twitter pay is not in the same league with, say, the enforcement end of the Empire.  Jeffrey Epstein, for instance, high up in the blackmail division of the Empire, has lived way beyond extravagance and hugely beyond the rule of law for decades.  No positive achievements needed.

But one can see now in Epstein what kind of risks this does entail, even as a loyal subject only doing his job. Fall guys are essential in extreme cases, after all.

But even the high-tech news boys could be facing the business end of a people’s pitchfork rather soon.  When the Empire expires so will the careers of most of its supplicants, all departments beware.

Whatever will become of my Twitterati now?

STEPHEN MERRILL

Mr. Merrill, a practicing Anchorage attorney, served in the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps and as a Navy Reserve Intelligence Officer.  Contact him here.

Mr. Merrill is the editor of the Alaska Liberty Corner.

Copyright © 2019 STEPHEN MERRILL - All Rights Reserved
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