Daily Archives: March 3, 2020

The Pete Buttigieg campaign is deploying any army of Twitter volunteers to digitally door-knock likely supporters ahead of the important Super Tuesday primaries next week, two members of the Buttigieg campaign told The Verge. Its just one way that 2020 presidential campaigns are leveraging social media in new and aggressive ways ahead of the primary contest.

As part of its efforts to get out the vote, the Buttigieg campaign has amassed roughly 200 total volunteers, spread across every Super Tuesday state and territory, to contact likely Pete supporters over Twitter. Those volunteers will reach out to a set of the @PeteforAmerica Twitter accounts over 66,000 followers, organized by the state listed in their Twitter profile.

After being named the Buttigieg campaigns online engagement director earlier this year, Stefan Smith has focused on how the campaign could harness the very real grassroots energy they see online by adding structure to internet organizing without making it top down, Smith said.

By scraping @PeteforAmericas followers, the campaign was able to sort each account by state in a spreadsheet that volunteers in those states can access. The volunteers then either DM or mention the account handles to see if they need help caucusing or voting. Additionally, the volunteers measure how likely the target is to vote for Pete, rating them on a scale of one to five.

According to Buttigieg spokesperson Ben Halle, the initial data collection is automated, performed by a custom program developed by volunteers. They came up with a program to go through all of the @PeteforAmerica Twitter followers and get all of their public information on Twitter, Halle told The Verge, and kick it into an Excel sheet that is separated by each Super Tuesday State.

Under the system, a California-based volunteer would parse through the California sheet of accounts and reach out to them through their own personal Twitter accounts. According to Stefan, if a user responds to a volunteer, the volunteer would ask traditional door-knocking questions. The only difference is that its happening on Twitter.

A person offline is a person online too, and sometimes its just meeting them where they are, which sometimes is in their Twitter DMs, Stefan said.

Political campaigns like Buttigiegs and others have leveraged technology and social media in new ways to encourage their supporters to make connections with potential voters. The Bernie Sanders campaign does similar work with its BERN app that explains to supporters how they can connect with their family and friends in ways that support the Sanders campaign.

With just over 66,000 followers to reach out to, it gives volunteers a lot of work but not an unmanageable amount. Buttigiegs personal account has over 1 million followers, but the campaign focused on scraping the official account because of who it expected the followers would likely be.

If youre following Pete Buttigieg on Twitter, youre probably following him because you like him, but also you might just want to see what hes going to say or maybe youre a troll and you just want to pop in his mentions, Smith told The Verge. Campaign accounts are smaller, Smith said, and their followers are more likely to actually support their respective candidates.

Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Stefan said that the campaigns digital doorknocking efforts have been successful, and hes hoping to have around 500 people sending DMs to potential Pete voters by Super Tuesday. The campaign had volunteers reaching out to potential voters in the early voting states as well, but volunteers are ramping up efforts as they look forward to next week.

Updated at 2/27/20 at 5:36PM ET: Clarified that the program that scraped the follower details was developed by campaign volunteers, according to Buttigieg spokesperson Ben Halle.

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Pete Buttigieg is canvassing his Twitter followers ahead of Super Tuesday - The Verge

Welcome to another edition of The Grind where we were a (small) part of some big sports news last week. Vanity Fairs shoot with Maria Sharapova, who was announcing her retirement from tennis, took place in the very spot where I do my silly weekly videos! Well, sort of. They used the room to do her hair and makeup. But thats still quite the brush with celebrity, huh? Get it? OK, so its bad jokes like that which keep me so low on the totem pole in my own building. In any event, we eventually got to use the room, and in the meantime, there was also a lot happening in the world of golf.

WE'RE BUYING

Sungjae Im: Tales of this young mans ball-striking were not exaggerated. He is the real deal. And he wont turn 22 until the end of the month. Congrats to Im on picking up his first PGA Tour title at the Honda Classic. And the Presidents Cupper did it in rather impressive fashion by firing at the flagstick on both of the vaunted Bear Traps par 3s. Those shots that set up two clutch birdies were so impressive that runner-up Mackenzie Hughes paid his playing partner the ultimate sign of respect:

Transatlantic Twitter war: With so many awful things going on in the world, its great having Golf Twitter getting up and arms about something an announcer said. Heres the clip that nearly reignited the Revolutionary War:

Was Azingers tone condescending? Yes. Did he (and others involved in NBCs broadcast) focus too much on the fact that Tommy Fleetwood, a five-time European Tour winner and Ryder Cup star, has yet to win on the PGA Tour? Probably. But like it or not, it is a fact that the PGA Tour is the better tour and that Fleetwood has yet to win on it. And it's a fact that Fleetwood is well aware of and agrees with:

And as rough as it was seeing Fleetwood find the water on the 72nd hole and blow a chance at the maiden PGA Tour title, European Golf Twitter would have been insufferable. Although I do love seeing British slang like "bollocks," "wanker," and "shiite." I need to start incorporating those words more.

Lee Westwood: For one thing, its always nice to see a late-career revival. For another, I loved Westwoods Ask your parents response when he gets asked about what it was like in the 90s. And finally, yes, I had a little money on the man, both to win (sigh) and finish top 10 (cha-ching). Our Christopher Powers dubbed Lees 2019 Open Championship run Westys Last Stand, but hes still got plenty in the tank.

Rickie Fowlers schedule: The PGA Tour star said he spends 25 to 30 days per year with sponsors, including shooting commercials. Im totally buying it because his face is everywhere during a golf broadcast and he looks like a NASCAR driver with all those sponsors on his shirt. Hes also over 30, married, and out of the top 25 in the Official World Golf Ranking. Hey, youve got to pay the bills somehow.

WE'RE SELLING

Tigers new schedule: Tiger Woods skipping the Arnold Palmer Invitational isnt reason for his fans to panic, but the latest indication that the rest of his career will consist of a very limited schedule is still sad. In an effort to avoid back-to-back starts, Tiger is opting not to play at a place where hes won eight times and possibly the spot that gives him the best chance for a record-breaking 83rd PGA Tour title. But Woods is far more concerned about increasing his major total, and considering he also skipped this event last year, maybe this isnt the worst news. . .

Brooks Koepkas responses: I love Blunt Brooks or Candid Koepka as much as the next guy, but in the span of a few days he claimed he once made a hole-in-one at Augusta National and forgot about it later that day, said $200 million wouldnt change his life, and insisted he played well two days in a row despite not coming close to making the cut at the Honda Classic. As the guy ventures further and further into too-cool-for-school territory, we're starting to take some of his remarks with a huge grain of salt.

Being quarantined: Edoardo Molinari and Lorenzo Gagli were initially pulled from the Oman Open and placed in solitary confinement by the European Tour out of fear they had the Coronavirus. Fortunately, they didnt, but it didnt sound like a fun experience:

Both players were eventually reinstated and Gagli even finished T-10. But yeah, that couldnt have been a great feeling.

Being drilled in the, um, you know:

Speaking of uncomfortable feelings. . .

Kids, dont try that at home. And guys, dont try that at home. Well, unless you dont want to have kids.

ON TAP

The PGA Tour continues its Florida Swing with the Arnold Palmer Invitational, AKA that place where Tiger Woods used to win every year, but now skips every year. It was more fun when he was winning every year.

Random tournament fact: Last year, Francesco Molinari became the first player in PGA Tour history to sink the winning putt with the flagstick in.

RANDOM PROP BETS OF THE WEEK

Zinger will say, That European Tour on this weeks broadcast: 1-MILLION-to-1 odds

Francesco Molinari will win this week: 90-to-1 odds (Actual odds)

Francesco would rather miss another cut than be quarantined like his brother: LOCK

PHOTO OF THE WEEK

This guy just keeps on going:

Thats a remarkable 41st career PGA Tour Champions title for Bernhard Langer (hence, the pose), bringing him within four of Hale Irwins record. That also pushed the 62-year-old past $29 million in earnings on the senior circuit. He made $10 million on the PGA Tour. Remarkable.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (MUSICAL DIVISION)

Our man Sam Harrop is back with another fantastic song parody. This time, its a plea for Anthony Kim to come back:

This is beautifuland importantwork. Well done, Sam. And hope youre listening, AK.

VIRAL VIDEO OF THE WEEK (FAIL DIVISION)

LOL Luke McDonald?! The guy is a former World No. 1 for crying out loud! Wheres the respect?!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

"I'm not even sure that he's polarizing. I'm not sure there's too many people on the other side, you know what I mean? I mean, 'there is no God' was the first thing I said after he'd won last week. There is no God, you know, that's proof of it right there. Amazing. I mean, he is amazing. He's Captain Oblivious, just can let everything run off his back. I've never seen anything like it." David Feherty on Patrick Reed. My word! Tell us what you really think, David!

THIS WEEK IN CELEBRITY GOLFERS

Turns out, Mike Trout can smoke a golf ball even harder than he hits a baseball:

Decent athlete, that one.

THIS WEEK IN PGA TOUR PRO-WAGS PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

FOLKS, we have a GRETZKY wedding alert!

Sorry, hope you didnt get too excited. It was Ty getting hitched, not Paulina. But Paulina and DJ were there looking fancy. And The Great One was there making heartfelt toasts. And one of these days well finally get the golf royal wedding weve been waiting for since 2013. Right? Maybe? Fingers crossed, because theres going to be a lot of CONTENT when it does happen.

THIS WEEK IN PHIL BEING PHIL

Phil Mickelson might be even better playing Pebble Beach on a simulator than he is at playing Pebble Beach in real life:

Speaking of content, please attempt that in the real tournament next year. Please.

THIS AND THAT

Sami Valimaki, 21, won his first European Tour title just 18 months removed from finishing up his required military service for Finland. Guessing the food in player dining is just a bit better than at his previous gig. . . . Dustin Johnson said he will not play in the Tokyo Olympics later this year, even if he qualifies for the U.S. team. Is this a hint of a July wedding? . . . Tiger Woods has been officially announced as a finalist for the World Golf Hall of Fame 2021 class. Fingers crossed he has the votes to get in. . . . And finally, Im in the midst of a dental emergency stemming from a root canal I underwent two years ago. I will spare you a photo, but suffice it to say, THE GRIND has extra meaning behind it this week.

RANDOM QUESTIONS TO PONDER

Who will deliver Tiger's Hall-of-Fame introduction speech?

How many days a year did Maria Sharapova spend with sponsors?

How many days this year am I going to have to spend at the dentist?

WATCH MORE VIDEOS FROM THE LOOP

See more here:

A Transatlantic Twitter war, a heartfelt plea to Anthony Kim, and a Gretzky wedding (just not the one you're thinking) - Golf Digest

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What Twitter Has to Say About Super Tuesday - Slate

But almost a week later, Facebook and Twitter say the State Department has yet to provide evidence that would allow the companies to investigate and possibly shut down the accounts.

"We would love to get a briefing on this," Yoel Roth, who leads Twitter's team investigating coordinated influence campaigns, said at the RSA cybersecurity conference in San Francisco Thursday.

Speaking at the same event, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of cybersecurity, said, "We have asked for any evidence that supports this, we haven't received anything yet."

The lingering questions expressed publicly by senior staff at these tech companies may raise new doubts about how the US government is working with Silicon Valley to combat Russian disinformation targeting Americans as well as how the government determines where online disinformation is coming from.

"In this case, we were able to see their full disinformation ecosystem in effect, including state TV, proxy web sites and thousands of false social media personas all pushing the same themes," Lea Gabrielle, State Department special envoy and coordinator of the Global Engagement Center (GEC), told AFP.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he was confident in the GEC during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, after Gabrielle was put in charge.

"I feel like we've made strides. Look, it took us a little while. We didn't have someone there that we chose to lead that organization," Pompeo said. "We now have that person in place and I think it's improved dramatically, really in over the last two months."

The GEC is the primary State Department arm to combat Russian disinformation, sources have told CNN.

Russia ran an expansive covert social media influence campaign targeting the 2016 US presidential election. While Russia may very well be doing the same around the coronavirus, there is skepticism of the methods the State Department used in reaching its conclusion.

Russia has denied the allegations of being behind the alleged coronavirus disinformation campaign. "It is a deliberate fake," Russian Foreign Ministry's Spokesperson Maria Zakharova told Russian state news agency Tass last Saturday.

Discussing the challenge of attributing actions in the online disinformation space to specific actors, Gleicher said, "When you don't share the evidence behind it, but you make a broad claim, it becomes incredibly difficult to understand if anything is there, but the theory something is there is off to the races."

"And particularly now," he added, "because people are looking for Russian actors under every rock and because we know an explicit part of Russia's goal is to get us to look for Russian actors under every rock. That is really challenging."

Gleicher said Facebook and other social media companies have good working relationships with the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Office of Director of National Intelligence.

Roth said that "clearly Russian" accounts with very obvious names have shared false medical information about the coronavirus, but Twitter had not observed "2016-style" covert activity.

"If the question is are there clandestine assets on Twitter or on Instagram or on Facebook that are engaged in some sort of 2016 style covert activity, our experience thus far is no, we haven't identified anything like that," he said.

Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN on Friday that the State Department had given the company a short briefing on its findings earlier this week but had not provided Facebook with a copy of the report.

"We have asked the State Department to share the evidence behind their report," a Facebook spokesperson said. "If and when they do so, we will prioritize its review as part of our ongoing effort to monitor for coronavirus-related information operations and if we find anything we'll announce it."

A Twitter spokesperson told CNN on Friday that the company had requested information from the State Department. The spokesperson said the company had not yet been briefed but was in communication with State.

"The State Department routinely partners with social media companies to counter disinformation and we welcome this ongoing collaboration," a State Department spokesperson told CNN.

Original post:

Facebook and Twitter ask to see government report linking coronavirus misinformation to Russia - CNN

Things started Sunday with former Gov. Chris Christie sharing an opinion piece on Twitter that criticized his successor, Gov. Phil Murphy. And then it spiraled from there.

By Monday, the Republican former governor and the Democratic current governor were mixing it up in a pretty feisty Twitter fight.

Christie shared an editorial from The Press of Atlantic City, written less than a week after Murphy unveiled his latest state budget proposal, that took the governor to task for wanting to raise taxes on people who earn more than $1 million a year and on cigarettes.

Murphy then swung back.

Were still digging out of the spectacular failure brought by your eight budgets, Murphy tweeted to his more than 66,100 followers.

Then it was Christies turn.

The great thing about @GovMurphy is truth doesnt matter as long as he can make the sale, Christie said to his nearly 900,000 Twitter followers, going on to list what he touted as his accomplishments.

Now Murphy:

Governor: you may still be fooling yourself, but youve long ago stopped fooling New Jersey, Murphy responded Monday afternoon, accusing Christie of revisionist history.

About ten minutes later, Christie attacked again.

As usual with @GovMurphy lots of empty campaign rhetoric but ZERO facts, he tweeted.

The two havent gotten along publicly, with Christie being the more likely of the men to hurl attacks.

In 2017, before Murphy won the election, Christie called him a joke, a fraud and man who bought his partys nomination.

And the attacks continued after Murphy succeeded him.

When Christie left office, the brash governor known for grabbing the spotlight and speaking his mind vowed he wouldnt offer a running commentary on Democrat Murphys performance.

But by Murphys first year-and-three-months in office, he had apparently had enough.

I gave him 15 months of my silence. Its over, Christie said at an event last year, saying Murphy was "well on the road to failure.

The back and forth comes shortly after Christie wished Murphy a speedy recovery on Twitter after the governor revealed a week ago Saturday that he has a tumor on his kidney that is 90 percent likely to be cancerous and he will soon undergo surgery.

Mary Pat and I wish .@GovMurphy and his entire family all the best as he undergoes treatment for cancer. All of NJ will be joining us in praying for your full recovery, Christie tweeted on Feb. 22.

Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewArco or Facebook.

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Christie and Murphy are fighting each other on Twitter - NJ.com

James Conner hasn't played a full, 16-game season as a pro. In fact, Conner averages just 12 games per year in his three seasons with the Steelers, 75 percent of a full season.

Those numbers peaked as a rookie, when Conner was available for 14 games but played just six percent of the team's offensive snaps working behindLe'Veon Bell. He went down late in that season with a knee injury, getting shut down for the team's final two games.

Most recently, in 2019, Conner missed time throughout the season. It wasn't just one injury requiring surgery but rather nagging injuries to his shoulder, to his thigh that caused him to miss six games in all. As such, he followed up a Pro Bowl 2018 with disappointing metrics: 464 rushing yards, 251 receiving yards and seven total touchdowns.

All this has caused concern at a minimum and panic at a maximum within Steeler Nation.

Well, within most of Steeler Nation at least. Then there are fans likeClay Lumps, taking to Twitter to defend Conner's performance. You can read the full thread right here, but his point is this: Conner is a valuable piece of the Steelers offense, and the team will need his talents and his leadership moving forward.

Lumpsalso added that Conner's injury history might be directly traceable to his well-documented battle with cancer during his time at the University of Pittsburgh.

Conner readLumps' thoughts and wholeheartedly endorsed them:

While there's no guarantee Conner will piece together a full, 16-game season in 2020 his final year under contract before becoming an unrestricted free agent in 2021 there's no doubt his will and his spirit remain unbreakable as ever.

To not only read comments on Twitter but to engage them seems potentially harmful on Conner's part (spoiler alert: some users aren't as nice as Mr. Lumps here) but he continuously uses the comments as fuel, keeping his mind in the right place and moving forward.

That's really all you can ask for. Now, Steelers fans will anxiously await Conner's chance to prove the results on the gridiron.

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James Conner fueled by Twitter comments: 'The best is yet to come' - DKPittsburghSports.com

Last week, some law professors on Twitter dug their straw people out of storage and started swinging baseball bats furiously. Their complaint was a public records request sent by Slates Mark Joseph Stern asking some prominent public university Federalist Society advisors if theyd heard anything from Leonard Leo recently.

Its a newsworthy request, since Leo claims that he walked away from the day-to-day management of FedSoc in a bid to deploy more dark money in his effort to get more non-qualified judges on the federal bench.

Bainbridges problem with the request, he says, wasnt the propriety of a public law school professor having to respond, but that he felt left out of the right-wing conspiracy.

True. Darth Vader threw his evil boss down a shaft instead of tweeting a heads-up.

Aw, dude, its not personal that youre not part of the right-wing conspiracy, its that youre at UCLA. If theres any FedSoc chapter that must be crawling with FSINO never-Trumpers its got to be the Bruins. I guess they did make all those T-shirts about being on Team Sander showing support for Richard Sander, the co-author of Mismatch, the anti-diversity screed that Scalia tried to use to get Becky With The Bad Grades into Texas. But generally speaking, public law school education folks in Los Angeles dont scream right-wing activist.

Seriously though, what kind of smear job does this request suggest? If Leo isnt handling day-to-day work, its a story that doesnt get written. If he is, then its not a smear job but a pretty important story about dark money and non-profit statuses.

Sure but thats not this request. This isnt a request for every FedSoc document a professor has ever touched from newsletters to student budget requests its a very focused request about whether or not a professor has corresponded with Leonard Leo since the latter publicly claimed he left FedSocs day-to-day management?

Every document request should be so narrowly tailored!

Its pretty clearly not a story about what any professor is doing, its about whether or not this guy is doing what he said he would to tacitly comply with the law. Obviously there are records requests that could function as cheap intimidation tactics. Weve seen those before. They focus on the professor and try to dig up the substance of anything the professor may have written or said so they can concoct some sort of pressure campaign.

I know were talking about law professors here so this may be a futile request, but not everything is about you. This request is about a non-professor and not even about substance since all that really matters is if the contacts took place at all. If you cant feel comfortable with a request this straightforward then youre basically against the whole concept of public records transparency and thats problematic too.

No one wants to Potter Stewart this thing, but I know an abusive records request when I see it. This isnt it.

Joe Patriceis a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free toemail any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him onTwitterif youre interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.

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Law School Profs Throw Fit On Twitter Over Having To Answer Basic Reporter Questions - Above the Law

PRO-independence bloggerStuart Campbell has accused Twitter of "directly interfering in national politics" after his new political party's account was suspended.

The 51-year-old,who runs the Wings OverScotlandsite, is considering launchingthe pro-Yes party in time for the 2021 Holyrood elections.

Twitter bannedthe @WingsPartyScot account, which had not tweeted anything yet,as soon as it was created, saying it brokerules "against managing multiple Twitter accounts for abusive purposes".

Campbell announced the rejection of the account on Twitter. He said:"As far as I can tell this does not breach any of Twitter's rules, as the party is a distinct entity from the political website.Nope, banned straight away without doing anything. Appealed. Should be interesting."

Campbell said the final decision on the launch of the party, which would be supportive of most of the SNP's policies, will take place in April.

He told The National: "This wasn't an official launch of the party.But it raises the extremely concerning prospect of Twitter directly interfering in national politics by silencing a political party in an election, based on an already-unjustified sanction against the biggest Scottish politics website in the country, which Twitter still refuses to give an explanation for.

READ MORE:These are the two pro-indy billboards BANNED due to 'political gatekeepeing'

The original Wings account has not breached any of Twitter's terms and conditions and nor did this one, but both have been banned for expressing views Twitter, or certain of its employees, appears to be opposed to."

Campbell floated the idea of a Wings Party in August lastyear, telling The TimesNicola Sturgeon's party is "in a shambles".

I thinktheSNPis a shambles at the moment.It doesnt know what its doing," he told the newspaper.

He said he would start the ball rollingif it looked like there wasnt going to be a pro-independence majority, which I think is a very real danger".

Wings Over Scotland is the nations most-read political blog, with about 250,000 unique visitors a month.

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Twitter instantly bans account for 'Wings Over Scotland Party' - The National