November 21, 2022

"I noticed my number of followers drop for the first time in a couple weeks right after Trump‘s return was announced.

"My advice: If you’re following me, don’t depart Twitter, thus diminishing my reach; just don’t pay attention to Trump!"

Laurence Tribe tweets.

This is a problem with trying to protest Musk and Trump. You cause your side to lose clout on Twitter.

Tribe has 1.3 million followers right now on Twitter. That's a strong reach, and it must hurt to see his following ebb.

He's also got this pinned tweet from 13 hours ago:

Beware of fake “people” on #Mastodon. I have no account there, but someone pretending to be me and using the moniker tribelaw@beta.mstdn.ch reposted my tweets for a while, then stopped. They might start up again and post weird shit, falsely attributing it to me. It’s dangerous!

41 comments:

Leland said...

Bots will be bots unless identified and removed by Twitter.

Iman said...

Experts in Narcissism.

Joe Smith said...

In the running for one of the dumbest 'smart' men in the world.

And to think the lefties' wet dream was for him to be on SCOTUS.

Dodged a bullet there...

Wince said...

Huh? So Tribe experienced similar drops before a "couple weeks" ago?

gilbar said...

i Wonder how many of his 1.3 million followers were actual people?

wendybar said...

Who cares. I am not on twitter, although, I do enjoy reading them on twitchy sometimes. People need to get a life beyond their social media.

hombre said...

Among the definitions of "derangement" is: "Disorder of the intellect or reason; insanity."

Tribe is afflicted with Trump Derangement Syndrome. In a normal world that would explain his diminished following. In Leftworld, not so much.

Randomizer said...

It's hard to understand what people like Lawrence Tribe are afraid of. I think NPR has lost credibility, but I've never told anyone not to listen to it.

gspencer said...

Not called Lost Tribe for nothing.

Temujin said...

Maybe Laurence Tribe should drop Twitter and concentrate more on his studies. His last few years of tweets and commentary have been embarrassing.

Never too old or educated to learn more, eh Larry?

tommyesq said...

"I noticed my number of followers drop for the first time in a couple of weeks right after Trump's return was announced."

What a poorly-worded sentence - I think he means that his numbers dropped after Musk announced that Trump would no longer be banned, and that his numbers had not dropped over the two weeks immediately prior to that announcement, but it certainly reads as though he is writing from the future and noting that his numbers went down over the two week period following the announcement.

Also a poorly-reasoned tweet - first, Trump's "return" was not announced, simply the elimination of his ban. Trump has suggested in the past that he would not return to Twitter, and to my knowledge he has not indicated that he would resume tweeting. Also, if Tribe's numbers were declining two weeks ago, plateaued over the course of two weeks, and then began declining again, it suggests that this is not related to any Trump/Twitter news and simply a part of an on-going trend. Could be that Musk's purchase triggered it, could be that Tribe is just not that interesting to Twitter users anymore, he does not provide enough information to know.

tim maguire said...

Temujin said...Never too old or educated to learn more, eh Larry?

Larry Tribe is one of the people I use as a cautionary tale about social media and how the decline of faculties experienced by the elderly, which used to take place privately among friends and family, now play out publicly and can, in a terrifyingly short period of time, destroy reputations it took decades to build.

Richard said...

"They might start up again and post weird shit, falsely attributing it to me. It’s dangerous!"

He has a point. Nobody would be able to tell the difference between weird shit and what he normally posts.

Lurker21 said...

"My advice: If you’re following me, don’t depart Twitter, thus diminishing my reach; just don’t pay attention to Trump!"

I'm starting to get the same megalomaniacal "Bond villain" vibe from this guy that Klaus Schwab and the head of Pfizer give off.

You voice your opinion and if it's a good one or an interesting one people pay attention to it.

Don't worry about the number of followers you have like a teenaged "influencer" does or about your reach and power like Blofeld or Goldfinger or Dr. No did.

veni vidi vici said...

"tribelaw@beta" is pretty truthful marketing.

Between him and that moronic stump of a man, Robert Reich III, one has to wonder how much of the Clinton-era good times really was just pissing away the "peace dividend" on autopilot.

FullMoon said...

These kind of people lose followers(fake or real) and they regress to childhood when nobody liked them.

At cocktail parties, facetious sympathetic comments will be made regarding loss of popularity.

Amadeus 48 said...

Tribe shares this with Woodrow Wilson: neither man ever saw a constitution that he didn't want to rewrite.

Christopher B said...

Since Tribe brought up Mastodon, check this tweet (the second item) captured by Pixy Misa @ AofSHQ. The new JournoList running on Mastodon is being widely blocked by other Mastodon servers for transphobia.

Mike said...

Some folks specialize in dumb tweets. Larry can you hear me?
Some specialize in "mean tweets", although some mean tweets simply observe that the Emperor is scampering around in the altogether. Bad Orange Man can you hear me?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

They were bots, Larry. Don't you progs understand yet what Twitter was doing? Amplifying and allowing "fake follows" for the "Good Guys" and suppressing followers and reach for the "Bad Guys." But now the 75% of employees managing information instead of people are gone. The bots are not welcome. Twitter is in its natural state for the first time since about 2008ish.

tim in vermont said...

The fact is that Twitter delivers a global audience of hundreds of millions, and you want to walk away from that and maintain your influence, well it's your loss.

William said...

I saw an article about the American Music Awards. I didn't read the article, but I recognized some of the names. I have heard of Taylor Swift and Pink and may have at one time or another heard one of their songs. Still, I don't have much interest in them or their music. So it's not just rap music that I'm disinterested in. I have a broad, wide ranging disinterest in many forms of music.....In fact my disinterest in the culture in which I live goes even beyond music. I don't have much interest in Twitter. Apparently, like music, there are pecking orders and important people in that world, but it all goes by without much impact on my life....Celebrity chefs: I'm not into them either.

n.n said...

They were bots, Larry.

Hah! His followers are not viable.

Twitter is clearing burdens and the accounts with simulated human identities are being aborted and sequestered in the modern model. That said, no actual tweets past six weeks are affected, maybe.

Milo Minderbinder said...

The left is scared of Trump. If they weren't, they'd just shut-up and let Trump be Trump.

Freeman Hunt said...

Imagine leaving a platform because they let someone speak who you don't like.

tim in vermont said...

Basically Twitter is losing a large number of Yellow Dog Democrats, A.K.A. "unpersuadables."

cubanbob said...

The Left won't stop using Twitter. The difference now will be they will be questioned on obvious BS. Same with the Looney Right. As for Trump, he has his Truth so he can't be Tweeting on Twitter all of the time unless he plans to abandon his partners billion dollar investment.

cubanbob said...

The Left won't stop using Twitter. The difference now will be they will be questioned on obvious BS. Same with the Looney Right. As for Trump, he has his Truth so he can't be Tweeting on Twitter all of the time unless he plans to abandon his partners billion dollar investment.

wendybar said...

Because they can't handle the truth??



@JonathanTurley
The AP appears to have removed its claim that there is no evidence to suggest that Joe Biden spoke with Hunter about his business dealings. https://apnews.com/article/biden-inflation-donald-trump-business-9af868065b776b21f81fa73e7bafb97d It now says "there are no indications that the federal investigation involves the president."

Jonathan Turley


Replying to
@JonathanTurley
...The problem is that the revision creates a new problem. There is every indication that "the federal investigation involves the president." Not only is the President discussed in key emails under investigation, but the grand jury heard testimony that the "Big Guy" is Joe Biden.

wendybar said...

And then there is this. This new Twitter is GLORIOUS!!! I may have to join, just to follow some of these people!!

@ggreenwald
It's been 24 hours since the NYT acknowledged the reported emails from the Biden laptop were authentic, as was the NY Post's story on how they obtained it.

*None* of the media outlets that spread the CIA's "Russian disinformation" lie has admitted what they did or retracted it👇
https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1594716770878869509?

https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2022/11/21/glenn-greenwald-has-media-dead-to-rights-on-hunter-biden-laptop-coverup-a-gigantic-scandal-in-its-own-right/

Gusty Winds said...

Tribe Tweet: Beware of fake “people” on #Mastodon. I have no account there, but someone pretending to be me and using the moniker tribelaw@beta.mstdn.ch reposted my tweets for a while, then stopped. They might start up again and post weird shit, falsely attributing it to me. It’s dangerous!

This is soooooo....rich. Last week the left was freaking out and criticizing Musk for temporarily suspending Kathy Griffin for falsely imitating him. So he set a reasonable rule that parody accounts must identify themselves as parody. Musk reinstated Griffin, and is keeping to his parody rule.

Seems Tribe now agrees with Musk. Someone pretending to be someone else can be fraudulent and dangerous. Musk was just a step ahead of him I guess.

Greg The Class Traitor said...

"My advice: If you’re following me, don’t depart Twitter, thus diminishing my reach; just don’t pay attention to Trump!"

What a concept!

note, Tribe doesn't push this respect for freedom of speech on the grounds that principles are good.

no, he just pushes it on the grounds that he doesn't want to lose his social media followers.

What a loser

Greg The Class Traitor said...

Freeman Hunt said...
Imagine leaving a platform because they let someone speak who you don't like.

No, it's worse than that:
Imagine leaving a platform because they let someone speak who you don't like, even though you have the complete ability to ignore everything he posts there.

Anyone on Twitter can block Trump, and never see anything he posts.

What this is about is junior league fascists being really upset that they no longer have the power to take away other people's voices

chuck said...

Tribe has 1.3 million followers

The Adderall shortage hits home, 0.4% of the US population is nucking futs.

Rabel said...

This morning I got a notification on my phone from Twitter encouraging me to sign up for Twitter either with my Google account or directly with Twitter and "see what's happening in the world."

That's never happened before. I wonder what triggered the notification? The Musk/Twitter involvement here on Blogger, maybe? Elon heard how outstanding my comments are, possible?

I'm not on Twitter and I've never looked at a Twitter link on the phone. Strange timing.

Mary Beth said...

Randomizer said...

It's hard to understand what people like Lawrence Tribe are afraid of. I think NPR has lost credibility, but I've never told anyone not to listen to it.
11/21/22, 10:09 AM


Have I got a YouTube series for you - All Things Re-Considered by Peter Boghossian. Although, you may or may not be their target audience. It's really for people on the left who were dedicated listeners who have started to notice that it's not what it once was.

You don't have to tell people not to listen to NPR, but you might be surprised at the agreement you get if you express concerns over how it has changed.

Clyde said...

1,300,000 Maniacs In His Tribe.

Jerry said...

If the number of 'followers' dropped, likely a lot of them were bots in the first place.

I get it, that the numbers are important to your ego - but if half of them are fake in the first place, then Musk taking over and getting rid of the bot infestation is likely to severely impact your self esteem...

MadisonMan said...

One of my co-workers has many many twitter followers, but very very few active twitter followers == and that's a far more useful metric IMO

wildswan said...

William said
"I have a broad, wide ranging disinterest in many forms of music" going on to list other culture bits he rejects:
Current Music
Celebrity chefs
Twitter

Extending the list:
Current movies
Amazon series
New Disney stuff
Facebook
Meta
Each new racist, trans, abelist, etc. outrage on a campus where free speech is banned and Shakespeare is not taught.

Interested in:
The Ukrainian war
Elon Musk's Twitter wars
The Trump wars
JK Rowling's Cormoran Strike novels

Tina Trent said...

When I think of Lawrence Tribe, I think of Mussolini, only more nonsensical.

It's a good thing we didn't have Twitter during World War II. Or maybe it's not.