Daily Archives: April 11, 2020

According to the Stanford report, one of the top three bot accounts taken down last month operated under the name Mirjana Kujovic [@1kujovic].

The accounts tweets found their way into Serbian and Russian media more than once. Following Putins 2019 visit, the Russian website fontanka.ru cited a January 17, 2019 Kujovic tweet as evidence of the warm welcome Putin received.

Months earlier, in October 2018, a negative comment made by the Kujovic account under tweets by Serbian opposition politicians Bojan Pajtic and Vuk Jeremic was then embedded in a story by the tabloid Espreso.

The same month, another tabloid, Srbija Danas, published a Kujovic tweet criticising academic Dusan Teodorovic, a founder of the opposition Movement of Free Citizens, PSG.

Kurir also got involved, quoting another later-deleted bot popular with pro-government tabloids in Serbia Ivan Ilic [@grofodValjeva].

The more than 8,500 accounts deleted by Twitter worked steadily to legitimate Vucics policies and undercut public support for his opponents, the Standard Internet Observatory wrote.

The accounts tweeted more than 43 million times 85 per cent retweets.

While some were active in 2009, within months of the Progressive Partys founding the year before, the network began ramping up its activities in mid-2018, the Stanford report said, right before the start of large, regular anti-government protests under the banner 1 of 5 million.

The average number of followers attracted by the accounts was just 66, but combined they reached roughly 2.3 million Twitter users. @belilav11 and @1kujovic racked up 12,167 and 10,867 followers and more than 330,000 and 390,000 engagements respectively.

Engagement, however, was not the primary purpose, the report said.

they existed primarily to boost retweet and reply counts for other accounts, it said. This was consistent with the political aims of this network, which revolved around artificially boosting Vucic and his allies on Twitter.

The network and its media allies, Milivojevic said, were working to manipulate the Serbian public.

With 43 million messages [tweets] in which someone is praised or criticised, that manipulation also entails a decline in trust in the media by erasing the boundary between truth and lies, Milivojevic told BIRN.

And the bots work in concert with genuine, popular Twitter users and pro-government tabloids and broadcasters, she said.

What is published in tabloids is taken over by influential Twitter users Then anonymous bots retweet and spread it, and from there on their tweets are going back to informative talk shows, where politicians or analysts bring them in [printed] and show them around, Milivojevic said, referring to the Pink TV talk show Hit Tvit [Hit Tweet].

Like the plague

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'Vox Populi': How Serbian Tabloids and Twitter Bots Joined Forces - Balkan Insight

I was deaf, sometimes profoundly, until I was about 12. Id have an operation Id had seven by then get partial hearing, then lose it again. Finally, they couldnt patch up my eardrum any more, so they had to fashion a new one. Id say my hearing is at about 65% now.

It made me a more thoughtful, peaceful person, as well as hyper-observant. I can read peoples body language, which has heightened my ability to make good decisions. Growing up with a disability also makes you obsessed with control, so Ive never even tried alcohol, even though it seems like Im drunk on Twitter.

I decided to absolve myself of shame before I turned 30. My therapist said: A doormat is already lying down thats why people wipe their feet all over it! That changed the course of my life. It was empowering for me to realise that there might be a way for me to change how people interact with me. Projecting a lack of give-a-fucks has meant fewer people fuck with me.

Ive been saying how I feel on the internet for 10 years, but I never had a big following, so I was never able to do much harm or much good. Out of nowhere, I now have more than 4 million people at my fingertips. After a decade of people not really listening to you, youre not prepared for that responsibility. I have learned to be much more careful when calling someone out, especially if that person is already at a disadvantage.

I think Im less annoying in person than I am on Twitter. I live online as a provocateur. Sometimes you have to say things that are going to piss people off in order to create discussion. Im outrageous about abortion. I say things that might come across as insensitive so that thousands of people join a conversation. Thats not to defend all my insensitivity. Sometimes I genuinely get it wrong.

The worst I feel is when someone has misconstrued my tone, or Ive misrepresented myself, and Ive hurt a group of people by mistake. That burns me to my core. I cant sleep and I cant eat. I recently criticised a rapper on Twitter for talking about doing a water fast, not knowing that she was mentally ill. I should have known better to send any kind of negativity her way. I felt gutted and embarrassed and very sorry.

Everything I try to say about [my coming out as queer] is always, without fail, twisted. So Im not talking about it any more. I said what I needed to say at the time. I addressed the unfortunate timing, its all out now, and there isnt really any more to be said.

Im happy to be called out. I dont mind learning in public. Ive become a better person for it. What I find frustrating is that when you admit you were wrong people seem to attack you more. When I apologise theres a hysteria of bullying. Were so unaccustomed to dealing with humility, you sometimes get treated worse than if you say nothing. Theres no accountability, and no opportunity to learn it really halts evolution. Its not a weakness to apologise.

Once people get an appetite for you, suddenly the industry envelops you and boosts you. People write about you as if you are a saint, the saviour of humanity. They build you up to a point where the expectation of you isnt sustainable. You cant maintain that standard, which you never actually professed to have. Its stressful for female celebrities.

Theres a particular vitriol towards women with money. We can handle men living lavish lifestyles, but when a woman does the same thing we drag her down for how gaudy she is. You can see the beginnings of it with Phoebe Waller-Bridge. As soon as she signed that $20m deal with Amazon, people suddenly started to bring up her privilege, even though weve known about that from the beginning shes got a double-barrelled name!

Im not very interested in other peoples opinions of me. Thats liberating. I feel like I havent seen enough change over the course of my life. As Ive grown older, Ive become more aggressive, because nothing is moving fast enough. I cant just sit here and wish for the best any more. The fact that Ive got the privilege of a platform means I have a real chance to at least do something.

The podcast I Weigh with Jameela Jamil debuted on 3 April

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Jameela Jamil: I think Im less annoying in person than I am on Twitter' - The Guardian

Photo: Paul Morigi (Getty Images)

After spewing nothing but misinformation about what should be done to prevent COVID-19 cases, avid Trump allies Diamond and Silk were briefly locked out of their joint Twitter account.

A spokesperson for the social media site told Politico that the duo (born Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson) reportedly violated a term of Twitters rules regarding misinformation when they tweeted The only way we can become immune to the environment; we must be out in the environment. Quarantining people inside of their houses for extended periods will make people sick!

Their account was suspended on Wednesday (April 8), but has since been recovered. The tweet has been removed entirely, but that hasnt stopped the terrible twosome from going back on their page to talk about the illness. In a video posted to their account April 10, Diamond and Silk posted a video about being better, not bitter despite their brief suspension.

G/O Media may get a commission

Listen, just because bricks are being thrown in our direction, doesnt mean we have to stand there and be hit by the bricks, Diamond said as we rolled our eyes. There is something good in every day, and I can hardly wait to see all of the good thats gonna come out of all of this. They also urged their fans (?) to wash their hands, practice social distancing, and follow CDC guidelines.

We want this process to make us better, they said, which is a complete flip of what they proposed the other night, but we digress.

In other news, the World Health Organization (WHO) is warning world leaders about lifting lockdown restrictions too early, as it may result in a deadly resurgence of COVID-19 cases worldwide.

The way down can be as dangerous as the way up if not managed properly, WHO leader and microbiologist Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said of easing up on precautions. Currently, there have been over one million cases of COVID-19 reported worldwide, and the illness has claimed over 100,000 deaths.

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Diamond And Silk Were Suspended From Twitter, and for a Moment, Things Were Right With the World - The Root

Over the last five years, fast-food Twitter has made a name for itself with witty posts and highly-entertaining feuds with competing chains.

But fast-food chains aren't just committing to their public images; a new viral tweet thread suggests that companies are also stepping up their game privately and DMing with customers who reach out for personal interaction.

Twitter user @warmfourloko, who goes by Phil, tweeted a photo of his DMs with Subway from the last year, joking that the chain has been his "therapist."

The messages, which began in early 2019, include exchanges of "good mornings," Phil admitting that he's feeling "sad," and Subway encouraging Phil to "tell her how you feel."

The 21-year-old college student added in a later tweet that he took Subway's advice to "tell her how [he] feel[s]" and the move was a success.

In under 24 hours, the tweet received 587,000 likes and Twitter's revered tastemaker and comedy account @ArtDeciderdeemed the interaction "art."

Subway confirmed that the exchange was, in fact, authentic.

Phil says that he actually messaged "10 to 15" brand accounts to see how they would respond if he started regular conversations and ultimately chose to share Subway's responses.

"I thought it would be funny to see a personal, wholesome relationship between a brand and just some random guy," he told Insider. "I'm not really surprised it went viral. I know what kind of content people like to see."

While Phil describes Subway as one of his favorite fast foods already, the encouraging messages have inspired him to patronize the chain even more.

Phil, it seems, is not the only one reaching out to fast-food accounts for comfort.

Twitter user Nick Sanders replied to the viral tweet that he "low-key" related to the sentiment, posting a similar interaction with pasta chain Noodles & Company. In the messages, he chatted with the company, and they offered to treat him to their Barbecue Pork Mac & Cheese following his recovery from jaw surgery. Noodles & Company respondedby inquiring why they "never chat [with Sanders] anymore."

The photo received over 19,000 likes and the company's response received over 35,000 likes.

A spokesperson for Noodles & Company confirmed to Insider that the messages were an "authentic exchange" with the company's social media managers.

"As you can see looking at our social platforms, our social media strategy is rooted in genuinely connecting with our guests and this is just one example of the thousands of conversations we have with guests each year," the spokesperson told Insider.

Fast-food chains may not be the only ones showing their followers love. Twitter user @LuckyHD, who goes by Aidan, shared an alleged exchange with Kellogg's Pop-Tarts, calling the interaction "one of the moment's [he'll] never forget."

Aidan told Insider he was eating Pop-Tarts Bites and struck by how delicious they were, so he decided to message the Pop-Tarts account.

"[I] was not expecting a response," he recalled.

Aidan says he's never messaged any brand accounts before and was "shocked" to get a response.

Kellogg's declined to comment for this story.

Not everyone was lucky enough to forge a connection with a company's social media team. Twitter user @ohFusioN, who goes by Juan, claimed that Postmates' customer support responded to messages before "dipp[ing]" when things got personal.

Juan told Insider that he messaged the delivery service's Twitter account on New Year's Eve, asking for some help.

"Drunk me thought they would give the best relationship advice," he recalled.

Comments ranged from jokes about the message's authenticity to offering the support that Postmates allegedly would not provide.

Juan says he's surprised the other Twitter users had such successful encounters with brand accounts.

"I've seen several [posts] where it'll be a couple of messages and that's it, but they maintained [the exchange] for years," he explained.

Postmates did not respond to Insider's request for comment.

Ultimately, Phil, the original poster, is not surprised by other Twitter users' similar experiences with brand accounts.

"I see brands do this pretty frequently," he said, "[so] they come off as more of a person than a corporation."

Update: this story has been updated to include responses from Phil, Subway, and Noodles & Company.

Read more:

7 fast-food Twitter feuds that defined the decade

The 'choose your quarantine house' social media game is letting people choose their isolation dream team, from Beyonc to Logan Paul

The Cheesecake Factory announced it wasn't paying April rent, eliciting calls of solidarity online amid a growing strike movement

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A Twitter user went viral for posting his DMs with Subway, which he called his 'therapist' - Insider - INSIDER

Sarah Parcak, a renowned space archaeologist from Maine, won the hearts of countless exhausted parents when she announced on Twitter that she was refusing to homeschool her son anymore during the coronavirus pandemic.

We just wrote a hard email," she wrote at 7:57 a.m. Wednesday morning. "I told our sons (lovely, kind, caring) teacher that, no, we will not be participating in her virtual classroom, and that he was done with the 1st grade. We cannot cope with this insanity. Survival and protecting his well being come first.

In a series of tweets, Parcak explained how both she and her husband work full-time, and that her sons happiness "trumps crappy math worksheet management.

Her thread of tweets quickly went viral and garnered thousands of likes and retweets.

Then, less than 10 hours later, Parcak returned to Twitter to make another announcement: Shed been awarded a coveted Guggenheim Fellowship.

Uh, I have news. I was just named a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, for my next book project (which was proposed *last September* so my crystal ball is LIT) Surviving Collapse: The Global History of Human Resilience," she tweeted at 5:44 p.m. "Its been a day yall. Feeling overwhelmed, grateful, and humbled.

Just like her Twitter thread about her frustrations with homeschooling (which received more than 33,000 likes and 2,900 retweets), news of her Guggenheim Fellowship spread quickly through the Twitterverse, and she was showered with kind words of praise and congratulations.

The Bangor, Maine native is no stranger to the spotlight. As an archaeologist and Egyptologist, Parcak uses satellite images to search for lost sites of past civilizations and has described her work as if Indiana Jones and Google Earth had a lovechild." Shes been a guest on the The Late Show with Stephen Colbert," her research has been featured on the BBC and PBS, and her TED talks have been viewed millions of times. In 2016, Parcak won a $1 million TED Prize.

Parcak is a professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and serves as the founder and president of GlobalXplorer, a nonprofit online platform that uses crowdsourcing to analyze satellite images and cutting edge technologies to protect and preserve cultural heritage. She also co-directs the Joint Lisht Mission with Egypts Ministry of Antiquities, and shes the author of Satellite Remote Sensing for Archaeology and Archaeology from Space: How the Future Shapes Our Past."

Parcaks tweets about homeschooling during a pandemic clearly resonated, as parents around the country attempt to oversee their childrens classwork while trying to hold onto their jobs. The challenges, especially for parents of young children, can be overwhelming.

Obviously kids 10+ can cope better with independent work (sometimes)," she noted. "The littles cannot.

With her new book, Surviving Collapse: The Global History of Human Resilience," in the works, Parcak will have even more on her plate. Its a fitting title, given the circumstances that were all living in today. After announcing the news of her fellowship, she followed up with a couple more tweets.

I hope a lot of you who applied [for a Guggenheim Fellowship] also got great emails today," she wrote. If you applied, keep applying. What is today. I dont even know anymore.

Apparently now I need to write the book.

Emily Sweeney can be reached at emily.sweeney@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @emilysweeney.

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This mom went on a Twitter rant about trying to homeschool her first-grader. A few hours later, she was named a Guggenheim Fellow - The Boston Globe

Shortly after noon on a Tuesday, I popped into Animal Crossing: New Horizons to check on turnip prices. Todays number? A tasty 439 bells, four times the price I picked them up for. I turned a profit worth hundreds of thousands, invited friends to come by, and then decided to go one step further: offer access to my island via a shareable code, which I broadcasted on Twitter. It was instant chaos.

One of the riskier ways to turn a profit in New Horizons involves playing the stalk market buying turnips on Sundays before noon and then figuring out what day is your best chance to sell them. Wait too long (or attempt to cheat by changing your Switchs date settings to time-travel), and theyll rot. Prices change twice a day, every day. Its the gamblers dilemma: hold out for a higher price point and better profits, or quit while youre ahead. Anyone with an island boasting high prices is, for a short period of time, a golden goose.

This was the enviable position I found myself in, and it was incredibly, undeniably gratifying. Im the prettiest girl at the party, I joked to a friend while co-workers swarmed my island like a beach in July. They sold their rootstock, left gifts, and asked if they could share with friends. The entire experience felt so good a wholesome offering to the people I miss, a bright spot in otherwise troubled days that I craved a bigger dopamine hit. Twitter is the only dealer I have left these days for a quick high. I typed out a tweet with my islands prices, stipulated a few rules (be nice, dont take anything besides fruit, seriously please be nice), and hit send. Almost immediately, my game pinged to tell me someone was on the way.

For the next hour, strangers waited in a virtual line for a flight to my island. New Horizons caps capacity at eight people. It also insists that every player present must watch an on-screen announcement every time someone new arrives, which means the process can be slow and painful for everyone involved. If you want to sell your turnips, you need to be a little more than patient.

And then theres an element of trust you give to visitors that they wont wreck your safe little bubble. Nintendo has anti-griefing measures that wont allow players to use shovels or axes without permission, which can prevent people from digging holes or chopping down trees; that still wont stop them from stealing things, stripping all of your resources, or trampling your flowers. The common wisdom from friends: do not let strangers in. Here is anecdotal evidence about a friend of a friend whose island was pillaged and razed.

In my case, I was shocked by how well-behaved everyone was. I parked my villager on a stump near the airport and let people filter in and out while my game sat unattended. Instead of dumping trash or raiding my orchards, players left little presents for me: board games, Godzilla statues, hats. A generous stranger left a tip of 99,000 bells directly in front of me that, miraculously, no one pocketed. Others snapped friendly pictures posing with my character. (One player did enter my house to flop down in my bed and send me a picture after. Perverted.) When I checked my bulletin board, expecting graffiti of dicks, people had instead drawn little turnips or left thank you notes. It left me feeling peaceful, the sort of warm fuzzies you get when strangers show you kindness they didnt have to give at all.

My connection eventually crashed, and everyone was booted back to their own islands. The cheerful pings announcing new arrivals stopped, and I knew that, in a few hours, my prices would turn again. Suddenly, I felt a little lonely.

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I opened my Animal Crossing island to Twitter, and it wasnt a disaster - The Verge

Diptendu Dutta/Getty Images

#IStandWithLesbianBabadook has been trending on Twitter today, and no, it regrettably has nothing to do with an LGBTQ+ spinoff of the 2014 horror film The Babadook.The hashtag actually references an online spat between actor Aimee Carreroand Twitter user @Lesbianbabadook, during which Carrero failed to understand meme culture.

The voice actor for She-Ra, of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, reposted a meme that referenced her, and claimed it was a death threat, seemingly not understanding it was meant to be a joke about the class divide:

The meme used the same format as a previous meme featuring legendary skateboarder Tony Hawk, which made a similar joke, just in the context of a race war. Hawk reacted differently, which in contrast to Carreros case, earned him praise in the meme community:

Most reactions focused on Carreros failure to understand meme culture, and for taking the joke about class warfare too personally:

Many also took issue with the fact that Carrero failed to blackout the username of the much smaller Twitter account @Lesbianbabadook, which is apparently run by a minor, forcing them to go private due to the increased attention:

#IStandWithLesbianBabadook is now currently trending at number four on Twitter and has been mentioned by more than 6,000 users. When history comes calling, where will you say you stood?

Have a tip we should know? [emailprotected]

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Who Is LesbianBabadook and Why Is Everyone on Twitter Standing With Her? - Mediaite

Bill Maher is an easy guy to hate. Hes smug, hes cocky, and hes a rich white guy in 2020. But dont let surface details distract from the truth.

Unlikeable as he may be, Bill Maher makes some valid points in his latest segment called Virus Shaming, and woke Twitter is up in arms.

Mahers latest New Rule segment is straightforward. Scientists often name viruses after where they originate. He notes that the first half of MERS stands for Middle Eastern. Ebola comes from the Ebola River. Zika comes from the Zika River.

Then Maher asks,

So why should China get a pass?

He goes on to roast people like Ted Lieu for this tweet, claiming it would be just as stupid to call it the Mulan Virus.

Maher retorts,

No, that would be way stupider because it didnt come from Mulan.

He points out that Chinas wet markets, where exotic animals are sold and consumed, are shockingly, already starting to open back up.

Before backing up his claim about the correlation between bats and COV-like viruses from the American Society of Microbiology, he says:

Its not racist to point out that eating bats is bat sh*t crazy.

He quotes Dr. Fauci as saying the current crisis is a direct result of Chinas wet markets.

Maher explained how he doesnt want Chinese Americans to face racism. He just thinks that possibility is not worth sacrificing the truth.

We cant stop telling the truth because racists get the wrong idea.

So what does Twitter do? They immediately make it about race, of course.

One Twitter user didnt understand that Maher was making a joke when he implied the Spanish Flu originated in Spain. Its relatively common knowledge at this point that origins of the Spanish Flu arent entirely known, although some suspect Kansas. Maher was being sarcastic, for, you know, the comedy show. Unfortunately, some people need a live audience to clue them in on the punchlines.

Ironically, some sources like National Geographic, say the Spanish Flu originated in drumroll China.

And if you think its only straight white men who are backing Bill Maher, youre wrong.

One Tweeter, of many, makes it about gender.

Even though Bill Maher tries to protect against it, there are, unfortunately, going to be ignorant, racist people out there. They will associate the virus with people who are, or look, Chinese, and treat them poorly.

That is ridiculous and unfair. We need to protect innocent people, especially Asian Americans, who would be just as terrified of bats as anyone else.

Mahers point is that we cant hide the truth. We should be putting pressure on China to close down, or regulate, their wet markets. Its a global health risk and, after this pandemic, borderline unacceptable. But woke Twitter would have you believe its far more unacceptable to point it out.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.

This article was edited by Sam Bourgi.

Excerpt from:

Twitter Is Enraged That Bill Maher Has a Point About Chinese Virus - CCN.com

President TrumpDonald John TrumpCalifornia governor praises Trump's efforts to help state amid coronavirus crisis Trump threatens to withhold visas for countries that don't quickly repatriate citizens Trump admin looks to cut farmworker pay to help industry during pandemic: report MOREs reelection campaign is aggressively pressuring Twitter and broadcast outlets to sanction or pull misleading political attacks from Democrats, accusing the social media giant and the news media of using a double standard when it comes to policing political speech.

The Trump campaign has long been the subject of intense scrutiny from fact-checkers and reporters, who have called out its false or misleading claims and sought to have the content removed from the airwaves or social media platforms.

Trump's team is now looking to turn the tables, making the case that the social media giants and TV networks are turning a blind eye to similar misleading claims from Democrats.

In recent weeks, the Trump campaign has threatened legal action against TV stations for airing an ad cut by a Democratic super PAC that makes it seem as if Trump called the coronavirus a hoax.

Ithas also been sending scores of emails to Twitter to flag videos being produced and shared by Democrats to make the case that the content runs afoul of the companys policy on manipulated media.

And this week, the Trump campaign took the unusual step of producing a deliberately misleading clip of former Vice President Joe BidenJoe BidenOvernight Energy: Trump says US will cut oil production to secure global deal | Green groups press Biden on climate plans after Sanders exit | EPA looks to suspend hazardous waste cleanups during outbreak Trump campaign, RNC reach 17 million voters with digital efforts Kyle Kulinski: What went wrong for the Sanders campaign MORE calling the coronavirus a hoax with the sole purpose of testing Twitter to see if it would enforce its rules equally on the Trump and Biden campaigns.

Everything indicates that the Democrat donors who run Silicon Valley are intent on stacking the deck against President Trumps reelection, said Matt Wolking, a Trump campaign spokesman.

Their lack of transparency is further evidence that this is politically motivated interference in the 2020 election. Political speech and debate should not be policed and silenced by faceless, unknown actors and social justice warriors manipulating algorithms behind closed doors, he added.

Since Trump was elected president, there has been an explosion of media fact-checking, leading to enormous pressure on platforms to sanction or pull content that is determined to be misleading.

The president and his campaign have been accused of spreading misinformation through campaign ads countless times.

Broadcast and cable news outlets have refused to run some Trump campaign ads. Twitter has used its new manipulated media policy to warn viewers that a Trump campaign video about Biden was taken out of context. There is pressure on the cable news outlets to stop running Trumps daily White House press briefings about the coronavirus because of concerns about instances of misinformation.

These competing efforts underscore the degree to which the campaigns will be battling over misinformation and what's factualahead of the 2020 general election.

Democrats in particular are on high alert following the 2016 election, when Russian agents flooded social media with fake and divisive content aimed at damaging Hillary ClintonHillary Diane Rodham ClintonKyle Kulinski: What went wrong for the Sanders campaign Sanders's fate sealed by the over 40 crowd The Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Small businesses, unemployed await Congress's next moves MOREs campaign.

However, media observers warn that theres a difference between snuffing out a foreign adversarys disinformation campaign and cracking down on domestic political speech.

Its one thing to define a standard you want to keep, but once you get into the business of applying it, things can get pretty squishy, said Tobe Berkovitz, a former political ad buyer and media consultant who now teaches at Boston University.

The inciting incident for the Trump campaign was a mocking video it released of Biden that showed the former vice president saying, We can only reelect Donald Trump.

In the speech, Biden quickly doubled back to make it clear that he was warning that Democrats would get Trump reelected if they were divided and attacking one another.

The Trump campaign maintains that no one thinks that Biden was endorsing Trump. They say the video was merely ribbing a political rival.

Twitter, however, determined that the remarks were deliberately taken out of context.

The company cracked down, making it the first and so far only content it has sanctioned under its new manipulated media policy.

Since then, the Trump campaign has been flooding Twitter with emails flagging Democratic content it says has been similarly taken out of context.

Most notably, several Democratic groups have released ads featuring audio of Trump calling the coronavirus a hoax. Together, the ads have been shared and viewed on Twitter millions of times.

However, fact-checkers at The Washington Post, PolitiFact, Snopes and FactCheck.org have determined that its wrong to claim that Trump called the coronavirus a hoax.

Rather, Trump was describing Democratic efforts to politicize his response to the coronavirus as a hoax.

The Trump campaign has threatened legal action against TV stations broadcasting an ad from Priorities USA, the largest Democratic super PAC, in which Trump can be heard calling the coronavirus a hoax.

But Twitter has declined to sanction the ad, and TV stations are continuing to run it.

Josh Schwerin, strategist for Priorities USA, said the ad is making the point that Trump was using the hoax language to downplay the virus and shift blame away from himself.

Our ad uses a series of Trump's own words to show that he downplayed the threat of the pandemic even as the infection spread, Schwerin said.

That's entirely our point, he added. We stand by the facts in the ad, and every TV station has agreed that the Trump campaign's complaints fall flat. Holding our elected officials accountable is critical when they are falling down on the job, and we will continueto do that."

The Trump campaign argues that presidents words were taken out of order in an effort to warp the context of his remarks.

To draw attention to this, the Trump campaign this week released deliberately manipulated audio to make it sound like Biden called the coronavirus a hoax.

Biden never called the coronavirus a hoax, and in fact the audio is taken from two separate days.

The Trump campaign says its aim was to force Twitter to take a stand on the issue and to see if the company would apply its standards evenly.

Twitter declined to sanction the Trump campaigns deliberately misleading ad.

The Tweet you referenced will not be labeled under oursynthetic and manipulated media policy, a Twitter spokesman told The Hill.

The Biden campaign blasted Twitter for refusing to take action.

Twitter was dared to act on a piece of disinformation that clearly violates their rules, and they blinked, said campaign spokesman Bill Russo.Twitter has taken admirable steps in recent days to take action on tweets from the President of Brazil, Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, and Rudy GiulianiRudy GiulianiThe Hill's Morning Report - Presented by Facebook - Trump: Tough times but progress being made Giuliani touts experimental coronavirus treatment in private conversations with Trump Trump team picks fight with Twitter, TV networks over political speech MORE that have spread disinformation that endangers public health in the midst of this crisis which makes it all the more inexplicable and inexcusable that they are failing to act on this.

The Trump campaign is proudly boasting that their video is deceptive and fraudulent, which is shameful, Russo added. But the real damage here will come from their supporters, who will no doubt share the media as if it was true. We have seen this play before. Twitter has a responsibility to explain they will prevent the spread of this intentionally seeded disinformation on their platform.

Media experts are bracing for a 2020 campaign that is dominated by these types of struggles over information and context.

Its really complicated, said Berkovitz. Should there be a particular standard? Is it applied to everyone in the same way? Sometimes there are such egregious uses of content that pretty much everyone agrees on it, but its pretty clear that in this partisan era, most of the time views are going to be split.

Read more:

Trump team picks fight with Twitter, TV networks over political speech | TheHill - The Hill

ETHEL BOOBA. The comedian known for her social commentary on Twitter disowns her account on the platform, saying it is fake. Screenshots from Twitter.com/IamEthylGabison and Instagram.com/ethelbooba

MANILA, Philippines April 9 was a confusing day for the internet as Ethel Boobas Twitter account a pillar of woke Twitter was taken down after being disowned by the comedian herself, leaving her 1.6 million followers baffled.

Considering that Ethel, whose real name is Ethyl Gabison, has been known for this Twitter account for years, this latest development is a real head-scratcher.

Twitter has a lot of theories on why Ethel suddenly turned around and washed her hands of the account, which has never been afraid to get political and call out public officials when needed. Until the comedian herself gives us an explanation, perhaps we'll never know for sure.

But to help make some sense of it, here's a timeline of how Ethel Booba or whoever it was tweeting from her account rose to Twitter stardom.

2012

According to the bio of her now-deleted account, Ethel joined Twitter in January 2012. At the time, she was already a well-known comedian, and appeared on TV quite often. But social media brought her comedy to a wider audience.

Over the next few years, Ethel would tweet about everything under the sun, always adding her signature statement to the end of each tweet: Charot! (Joke!) Through a combination of relatable quips on the pitfalls of love, to unapologetic burns of public officials, to brazen commentary on touchy political issues such as the Duterte administration's war on drugs and political dynasties, Ethel quickly became Twitter royalty.

2016

By 2016, Ethel was already a Twitter mainstay and in August of that year, she announced without charot that she would be releasing a book called #Charotism: The Wit and Wisdom of Ethel Booba.

In October of the same year, her account already had close to 300,000 followers. In an interview with Boy Abunda, she talked about being a Twitter star and confirmed that she was of course the person behind the viral tweets.

2018

By July 2018, her Twitter had ammassed 1.3 million followers, according to a segment on ABS-CBNs Pareng Partners. In an interview with the shows host Anthony Taberna, she shared that she wanted to make people think with her tweets and that she would even ask some of her friends to translate her tweets to English if she needed to.

Bawat opinyon ko, pinag-iisipan atsaka bine-brainstorm (Each of my opinions are well thought-out and brainstormed), she laughed. At the time, she teased that a second book based on her tweets would be coming out.

2019

Ethel revealed in November 2019 that she had a social media consultant who edits most of her tweets before she posts.

Sa panahon ngayon 'di na basta-basta puwede magbitaw ng salita sa social media dahil matatalino ang mga tao dito, ako lang ang 'di pa sure. Charot! (These days one cannot simply say whatever they want on social media because people are smart here. Im the only one who isnt sure. Joke!) she said.

In another interview on Its Showtime, she also said she had admin who helped man the account, and that they held meetings to discuss her tweets.

2020

What in the world is happening? On April 9, Ethel disowned her Twitter, posting a screenshot of it on her Instagram account (which is linked on her vlog), saying Beware of this FAKE! twitter!

The internet is still scratching their heads, especially since she has spoken up about owning the Twitter account many times in various interviews, and even posted a photo of her first child on it in February, right after giving birth.

Recently, the account dished out commentary on the issue of Mocha Uson calling Pasig Mayor Vico Sotto pabebe, saying it was better to be pabebe (cute) than pabobo (dumb).

Social media distancing talaga kailangan nila (They really need social media distancing), the account tweeted.

Considering her latest post on Instagram, perhaps thats what Ethel herself has decided to do. Rappler.com

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TIMELINE: The Ethel Booba Twitter account that is apparently not Ethel Booba's - Rappler