Monthly Archives: January 2020

Germanys foreign office has apologised after an ill-judged joke on its Twitter account linking visas to seduction.

Your visa got approved #SeduceSomeoneinFourWords, the diplomatic service tweeted in a move that seemed to confirm long-standing stereotypes about the clunky German sense of humour.

The social media account, which is in English, was attempting to ride the wave of a Twitter trend which emerged on Thursday and spread around the world.

With the hashtag#SeduceSomeoneinFourWords, Twitter users were suggestingfour-word sentences that would spark romance.The fad attracted a mix of genuine and humorous responses.

After six hours and 20 minutes and numerous complaints, the foreign office deleted the offending tweet and apologised.

Being funny is apparently not always our strong suit, it said on Twitter.

We know the visa process is complex, and visa decisions can deeply affect peoples'lives. Our colleagues take these decisions very seriously.

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German foreign office apologises over visa seduction joke on Twitter - The Telegraph

Former New York City Mayor Mike Bloombergs White House campaign sought to garner attention Tuesday night even though its candidate was not on the primary debate stage in Iowa.

As six White House contenders duked it out onstage at Drake University, Bloombergs campaign published a string of unusual tweets along with a pinned message explaining the rationale.

"The #DemDebate is tonight. Because Mike hasn't taken any campaign donations, he won't be on stage. But we're here on Twitter, tweeting stuff. Fun stuff. The very best stuff," the message said.

The tweets included questions on topics ranging from a potential Bloomberg presidency to snack food.

"In a Bloomberg Adminstration, there will be no tweeting from the Oval Office. Just an aggressive number of TikToks. #BloombergFacts #DemDebate," the campaign said in one tweet.

In a Bloomberg Adminstration, there will be no tweeting from the Oval Office. Just an aggressive number of TikToks. #BloombergFacts #DemDebate

Less Tostitos branding than we expected. The candidates are barely mentioning Tostitos, which go great with dips, nachos or your favorite party snack recipe! #DemDebate, it said in another post.

Less Tostitos branding than we expected. The candidates are barely mentioning Tostitos, which go great with dips, nachos or your favorite party snack recipe! #DemDebate

Other tweets discussed the best placement on ones body for a tattoo, Vicks VapoRub, communicating telepathically with dolphins and more.

WHAT IS THE BEST PART OF THE BODY TO GET A BLOOMBERG 2020 TATTOO?

Mike not only reduced the number of uninsured by 40%, but also passed out free jars of Vicks VapoRub to people on the subway. #BloombergFacts #DemDebate

Mike can telepathically communicate with dolphins. #BloombergFacts #DemDebate

Neither the Bloomberg campaign nor Twitter responded to requests for comment from The Hill. Thetweets appeared to be part of a gambit to attract attention to the campaign during the debate, the final such event before the Iowa caucus on Feb. 3. Bloomberg is notcompeting in Iowa or the three states following it after a late entry into the presidential race.

To qualify for Tuesdays debate, candidates must have garnered the support of 225,000 unique donors and reached 5 percent support in at least four DNC-approved polls or at least 7 percent support in two single-state polls focused on Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada. Bloomberg, who is fully self-funding his campaign, did not qualify since he is not accepting any donations.

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Bloomberg campaign draws attention with 'fun' Twitter feed during Democratic debate | TheHill - The Hill

Wendy's Has Savage Twitter Response for Burger King - Thrillist Courtesy of Burger King - Edited

Burger King may claim to be the king of burgers, but Wendy's is the undisputed champ of snarky corporate Twitter accounts. Love it or hate it, Wendy's is frequently cited as the reason so many companies have taken a similar tone on social media.

It might have been a bit since you've seen Wendy's bring a tweeter to their knees, but the home of square patties is still capable of torching a sparring partner. Burger King was the one who found out this week. Burger King photographed its titular mascot in front of a Wendy's with a cardboard sign attempting to calling out those square patties at Wendy's.

Naturally, Wendy's sniped back.

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It wasn't over after just one round, though. Burger King appears to have taken a second photo during the photoshoot for its tweets. That makes sense because it's a little staged, and the company had to know that Wendy's was going to fight back.

The second sign said, "Don't burn people just because you can't flame-grill." That's a bit tepid (and cropped so you can't read it without clicking in), but it did set the stage for the best tweet in the exchange. Wendy's won the second round when it shot back, "Honestly expected better, but youre probably pretty used to hearing that."

As usual, Wendy's floated around in the comments strutting around like they just won the title belt.

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Dustin Nelson is a Senior Staff Writer at Thrillist. Follow him @dlukenelson.

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Burger King Tried to Roast Wendy's on Twitter & It Didn't Go Well - Thrillist

Read: Social media are ruining political discourse

And that is just the reaction to the presumptive heir to the Corbyn project. The Twitter Primary is harsher on candidates from other sections of the party. During the last leadership election, Corbyn was praised by the left for his principled opposition to the Iraq War more than a decade earlier. Jess Phillips, who is now among the candidates to succeed him, was so opposed to the conflict that she left the party. Nonetheless, because she has not supported Corbyns leadership since 2015, she is regularly described by self-identified left-wingers as a Tory.

The genuine fury from the left at people three inches closer to the political center reflects a turbocharged tribalism. Freud called this the narcissism of small differences; the legal scholar Cass Sunstein calls it group polarization, where deliberation tends to move groups, and the individuals who compose them, toward a more extreme point. In his 2019 book Conformity, Sunstein noted that confident people are both more influential and more prone to polarization. One consequence of group polarization, he found, was that those who held a minority position, or had useful information that ran counter to the prevailing trend, stayed silent or were ignored. Their groups therefore made worse decisions.

The Twitter Primary drives its members to extremes, while chilling the speech of outsiders. An excess of certainty leads activists to bad decisions and misapprehensions. Spend enough time on Twitter and you could believe that Corbyn won the argument in December, despite losing the general election. The postmortem on Labours defeat risks being hampered by a pervasive sense on social media that the party didnt really lose, not really: Well, everyone I know voted for Corbyn. Activists may intellectually concede the reality of the Conservatives 80-seat majority, but it doesnt feel like the Tories won. And that means there is less reason for them to support a change in tactics.

The small-p politics of culture journalism is also affected by tweeters lack of awareness of being exceptions rather than representatives of mainstream opinion. The journalist Jesse Singal recently published a post arguing that super-wokeness is mostly an elite phenomenon. Singal noted that Dave Chappelles latest Netflix show was widely condemned in ways that suggested everyone was offended by it, although, as he wrote, the best data we have suggest that the vast majority of Americans view political correctness as a problem The opinions most commonly represented in mainstream progressive outlets are not held by the masses, including by the groups seemingly with the most at stake. Hes right: Ultra-liberal attitudes to race and gender are indeed not held by the masses, including racial minorities. But, crucially, they are held by the peers of the journalists writing those pieces, with whom these journalists hang out on Twitter. Once again, the cloistered world of Twitter is creating a false sense of consensus.

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The Twitter Electorate Isnt the Real Electorate - The Atlantic

Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) has admittedthat ittemporarily allowed ad targeting with sensitive termssuch as "neo-Nazi," white supremacist and anti-gay, accordingThe Verge.

In the BBCs latest keyword targeting test on Twitter, the news organization said it was ableadvertise to people using terms like "neo-Nazi."

The social media platform later apologized for the errorand fixed it.

Twitter has specific policies related tokeyword targeting, which exist to protect the public conversation. Preventative measures include banning certain sensitive or discriminatory terms, which we update on a continuous basis, Twitter said in a statement to The Verge.

"We continue to enforce our ads policies, including restricting the promotion of content in a wide range of areas, including inappropriate content targeting minors."

Thepolicies of social media platforms on targeting have sparked several debates in recent years.

Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB) in 2019 revised its ads policies to stop advertisers from excluding certain users on the basis of race and other categories protected by federal law.

The Guardian reported in 2018 that advertisers could use Facebook to target users based on their sensitive interests.

The stock was down 1.11% at $33.81 at the time of publication Friday.

2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

Read the rest here:

'Error' Temporarily Allowed Ads To Target Sensitive Terms On Twitter - Benzinga

In the latest keyword targeting gone awry experiment, the BBC was able to use terms like neo-Nazi and white supremacist in a Twitter ad campaign, despite the social media platforms policy that advertisers may not select keywords that target sensitive categories.

According to Twitters policies, those sensitive categories include genetic or biometric data, health, commission of a crime, sex life, religious affiliation or beliefs, and racial or ethnic origin, among others.

The BBC ran an ad and says it was able to target users who were interested in the words white supremacist, transphobic, and anti-gay, among others. It wasnt clear whether the news organization was reaching users who were interested in those terms (such as for research) or people who identified as such, only noting that Twitter allows ads to be directed at users who have posted about or searched for specific topics.

The ad, which cost 3.84 (about $5) was only live for a couple of hours, the BBC reports, during which time 37 people saw it and two people clicked on it. A second version of the ad was targeted at users aged 13 to 24 using anorexia, anorexic, bulimia, and bulimic as keywords. It was seen by 255 users with 14 clicks before the BBC took it down. But according to Twitters tool, it had the potential to reach 20,000 people.

In an emailed statement to The Verge, Twitter seems to suggest the words tested by the BBC may not have been on its sensitive words list:

Twitter has specific policies related to keyword targeting, which exist to protect the public conversation. Preventative measures include banning certain sensitive or discriminatory terms, which we update on a continuous basis. In this instance, some of these terms were permitted for targeting purposes. This was an error. Were very sorry this happened and as soon as we were made aware of the issue, we rectified it.

The company says it continues to enforce its ad policies, including restricting the promotion of content in a wide range of areas, including inappropriate content targeting minors.

Ad-targeting on social media platforms has come under increased scrutiny, raising questions about the potential for discrimination. ProPublica found that it was possible to run ads on Facebook that essentially discriminated against groups protected by federal law. In 2018, The Guardian found Facebook ads could be used to target users based on sensitive topics, which is in violation of since-implemented privacy laws in Europe.

Link:

Twitter allowed ad targeting based on neo-Nazi keyword - The Verge

Design has its rules, but some of the most exciting projects are ones that subvert expectations by abandoning rules completelyor at least the ones were familiar with. Over the years, graphic designers have cleverly reimagined iconic business logos and transformed them into fresh visuals, while still retaining the brands identifiers like the logos color palette, or typography. Though its a new year (and a new decade!), which will almost certainly inspire new frontiers in design and architectural aesthetics, one thing will remain the same: the fun and frivolous phenomenon of remixed logos. Dribbble, the platform for digital designers, recently collected entries from some of its creators who gave famous corporate logos a refresh just for kicks.

Its only right to start with Twitter, as it has become the virtual Oval Office in the past few years. Designer Myles Stockdales take on the platforms omnipresent blue bird mascot is more geometric and bold than Twitters current offering, and features the addition of a small, circular eye. Stockdale also deepened the blue of the websites brand identity (perhaps to get closer to Pantones Classic Blue color of the year selection?) and added sharper edges to the typeface. Given the chaos that laces the Twitter timeline on a daily basis, this harsher, more direct visual language seems fitting.

Apple, a company whose very success was built on brilliant branding, seems like it needs no interference. The design of the brands iconic, partially bitten apple, which stamps every Mac computer, was first designed by Rob Janoff in 1977 as a two-dimensional, rainbow-striped fruit next to the company name. It went through several iterations in the following decades, and now exists as a flat, black silhouette. However, designer Ruslan Babkin decided to take the logo back to its roots by rendering it in technicolor. But he also looks toward the future with his treatment of the apples shape, which has rounder edges and an outline with greater movement, making the logo look like a colorful, speedy blur. His choice to incorporate color in the form of a gradient rather than sharply delineated lines makes the logo feel more modern, to be sure; but theres something clean and sophisticated about the grayscale of Apples brand identity today that gets lost.

Another company whose logo relies on the eye-catching excitement of color is Google. Its logo, a conservative, uppercase G, is synonymous with the search engine. Divided into sections of red, yellow, green, and blue, the logo is not particularly inspiring. So Indonesia-based logo designer Azzacts decision to convert it into a funky lowercase g with the exact same colorblocking, is a welcome revision.

Nike [Image: Rafael Serra]Type designer and lettering artist Rafael Serra used his font-creation skills to give Nike a unique new look. The iconic swoosh shape remains (albeit simplified), but Serra has placed it below lean, capitalized letters that look almost Art Deco. The N, I, and K are forward-leaning and top-heavy, and the E is outfitted with a diamond for its middle line. The refreshingly slim logo is certainly interesting but doesnt quite capture the bold simplicity of Nikes brand, which has long been known for its clean and sleek activewear.

Legendary logos from other companies, from FedEx to Spotify to Burger King, also got updates. To check out the rest of these reimagined logos, visit Dribbble here.

The rest is here:

Designers reimagined the corporate logos for Apple, Twitter, and more - Fast Company

An independent bookshop that failed to sell a single book on a rainy day this week has been inundated with customers after publishing pictures of its empty aisles on social media.

The Petersfield Bookshop in Hampshire sent a melancholy tweet revealing that it had not welcomed one paying customer, probably for the first time in its 100-year history.

Within a few hours, the fantasy and science fiction author Neil Gaiman retweeted the post to his millions of followers and, as if by magic, orders came flooding in from across the globe.

The unlikely turnaround began when the bookshop which specialises in antiquarian publications, maps and secondhand books experienced a particularly miserable Tuesday. Robert Sansom, who has worked at the shop for 13 years, hammered out the gloomy tweet.

Tumbleweed, the tweet read. Not a single book sold today 0.00. Sansom thought little of it, but was amazed when 1,000 worth of orders came in overnight.

It was really touching, he said. People have been so kind. This will really make a difference. There are slow days, but it was a really unusual day for us to have not sold any books no one wanted to come out because of Storm Brendan.

John Westwood, 56, whose family owns the store, said: It blows me away. I dont understand social media because Im old-fashioned, but when Rob called me and told me the figures, I was gobsmacked.

By Wednesday evening, the original post had been retweeted more than 6,000 times and received more than 11,000 likes.

The shop put out a further, more cheerful tweet: What a night! We have been completely overwhelmed in a good way. We have 1,100 new followers. We have loads of online book orders. We have over 300 messages, many asking after books. We will answer all as soon as we can, please bear with us. Thank you all so much!

Read more from the original source:

Oh what a night! Twitter brings 1,000 worth of orders to empty bookshop - The Guardian

Kayvon BeykpourPhoto: Christian Charisius (Getty Images)

Being verified on Twitter is a big deal to some social media addicts. People take you slightly more seriously, your insults pop up first in peoples mentions, and everybody wants to know how you got that tiny blue checkmark. Twitter hasnt unveiled any new process since halting verification in 2016. But now, thanks to a Wired interview with Twitter CEO @jack Dorsey, people think bugging a guy named Kayvon Beykpour (@kayvz) is all they have to do.

During a Q&A session, Dorsey was asked questions about Twitter via Twitter. One of those questions? How does one acquire the illustrious check mark on Twitter? Dorsey candidly responded: Theres a guy named Kayvon, and he handles all the verification, which is the blue checkmark. So if you either DM him or mention him, you have a high probability of getting a blue checkmark. Doesnt seem like itd be that easy!

And it isnt. Beykpour, a product lead at Twitter who definitely didnt want the attention, has been getting flooded with mentions since Wireds interview has gone live, and he hasnt responded to any of those hundreds of tweets. But he has changed his Twitter bio, as a kind of reply all.

Still, thats not stopping users from harassing Beykpour.

He did reply to one message, though, in true Twitter fashion: with a GI.

[via Boing Boing]

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This man will not verify you on Twitter, despite what Jack Dorsey says - The A.V. Club

There are professional golfers who are very good at using Twitter, and there are professional golfers who are very bad. Ryan Palmer falls somewhere in the middle, but his recent interactions on the Accursed Website (as it should be known to all) prove that he is definitely not a master of the medium.

As Joel Beall wrote on Monday, Palmer took some mild heat for failing to play a provisional on the 18th hole at the Sony Open in Hawaii on Sunday, which resulted in a frustrating delay that might have iced Brendan Steele out of a win. Then again, it might not haveSteele waited 20 minutes to hit his tee shot, and another 15 for his approach, but so did Cameron Smith, who caught him on the final hole and won in a playoff.

All in all, it wasnt that a big deal. The delay was bad, but Palmer believed hed find his first ball, and on the ladder of golf sins this is a low rung. He caught flack from the inevitable scolds on social media, but it should have been filed away quickly as the latest example of an institutional problem that nobody has the wit or will to solve.

Instead, Palmer took to Twitter to defend himself, which is almost never a good idea. His first tweet wasnt so bad:

The majority of the responses were supportive, but as anyone who has ever performed, played or written for a public audience can attest, its the negative feedback that sticks in the brain. Palmer couldnt resist replying to one of the haters:

This was the start of his blunderMungo was not, in fact, the only negative reply (if he was, Palmer wouldnt have sent the original tweet in the first place). But Palmer had caught a bad case of Twitter rabbit ears, so he got suckered in and revealed some thin skin. What he failed to understand is that the minute you show defensiveness or weakness on Twitter, youve descended into the snake pit and are at the mercy of the vermin. Sometimes, the vermin even have a point. This tweet spawned more negativity, at which point Palmer responded yet again:

That tweet was the worst, because it can be read as a sideways dig at a fellow playerSteeles the one who choked, not me!even though he didnt intend it that way. More negativity followed, mixed in with support, and finally Palmer, 44 and a 17-year PGA Tour veteran, learned his lesson and powered down the Twitter machine.

All in all, this was a brief exchange that wont really have much effect on Palmers life. Minor as it might be, however, it effectively demonstrates a universal truth: Athletes, including professional golfers, should never engage on Twitter.

The word engage is key hereTwitter can and should be used for self-promotion and #sponsored posts. By all means, tell us how your new SupremeGolf Blood Diamond Tee Holders have shaved eight strokes off your game. It can also be used for one-off messages from on highI wont tire of Phil Mickelson posting two-minute monologues from his car bragging about how, with the right technology, he could hit a golf ball onto the moon. This is all fine. But as a member of the rabble, heres free advice for the pros: Dont engage with us directly. It will never go well, for the simple fact that there are too many swine out here, and they have a kind of magnetic power.

There are notorious examples of bad Twitter by athletes, such as Kevin Durant running burner accounts to defend himself against legions of nobodies. Clearly, this only served to make him look insecure and pathetic. Golf hasnt been quite as bad, but its almost never good. Not long after his controversial sand-raking episode in the Bahamas, whoever runs Patrick Reeds account posted a picture of his son with a happy birthday! message. It might have been total coincidental timing, or it might have been some weird attempt to garner sympathy or scold the bad people of Twitter for being mean to a family man. Either way, the result was the same: complete savagery. To his or his teams credit, he at least figured out not to engage further until the next PR crisis at the Presidents Cup, when he did the same thing and the vultures circled again.

Others are much quicker learners. In 2014, I spoke with Jordan Spieth at the pro-am during the PGA Tours stop at Congressional Country Club. I asked him about his ability to filter out criticism and other unhelpful noise, and he brought up social media on his own. Keep in mind, he was still 20 years old at this point:

Ive had to change the way I look at social media. I cant read any comments. I mean, people just say stuff with no backing to it, no experience whatever, and its just people just saying stuff to say stuff because they feel like they need to barge in on something. And typically I would get bothered by that. But Ive learned Im learning to block it out and not think too much of it.

If you look at his Twitter feed today, you see the results of that early realizationin all of 2019, he posted 25 tweets, which is about as many as I fire off in five minutes if Im particularly angry at a Duke basketball game. He engaged in exactly zero conversations, and almost every post he made was promotional. In other words, Jordan Spieth has learned the valuable lesson.

Jordan Spieth is among tour pros who approach Twitter with caution, using it sparingly and mostly to promote his brands.

Then there are cases such as John Peterson, a star college golfer who struggled as a tour pro and was an absolute disaster of a Twitter presence. As far back as 2014, he was getting lectured by PGA Tour officials for his Twitter use, and was finally convinced by his agents to quit only to succumb to the temptation and re-join. Five years later, Peterson was still fighting and generating controversy on Twitter, even after his early retirement from golf, and you have to wonder if his inability to resist the siren song of the worlds best worst website contributed, at least in part, to his struggles as a pro.

Hell, even when an idea for engagement seems fun, good-spirited and participatory, it often manages to backfire on somebody. Ask Max Homa, who recently offered to roast the swing of anyone brave enough to post a video. It was a fun, goofy stunt, before it escalated into a big fight. Not that Homa particularly cared, but the point is that there are no victimless engagements.

I needed an expert opinion to back me up, so I called up David Winkle, president of Hambric Sports and agent to Dustin Johnson. Winkle knows the benefits of a well-managed Twitter feed but has seen first-hand how it can be a double-edged sword.

Its a wonderful way for athletes to engage and present a more personal side of themselves, Winkle said, but you can say 999 very positive things, and if you have one slip of the tongue, all that good is undone.

Unsurprisingly, he advocates for carefully managing a social-media feed and gives all his clients the same piece of advice: Dont read the comments. Which is another way of saying, Dont engage.

If Mother Teresa had an Instagram, Winkle said, even she would be abused by a sick few. No one is immune to creepy social-media trolls who just cant wait to pounce, and have their own issues and axes to grind. Theres so much toxicity out there, based in jealousy or wrongful perception, and they cant wait to tear you down.

My thoughts exactly. As a journalist, its far more interesting for me when Twitter drama is a regular part of the professional golf experience, but if I were in Winkles position, Id be singing the same tune. He wouldnt use these exact words, but Twitter at its worst is a loathsome cesspool, and when you play with the pigs, youre going to get muddy.

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The latest example of why pro golfers should never engage on Twitter - Golf Digest