#BuyTwitter and kicking off 45
A former CIA agent named Valerie Plame has started a crowdfunding campaign with #BuyTwitter. Her objective is to buy a controlling share of Twitter ($1b, or appx. 6%) to try and forcibly remove the 45th President of the U.S. Valerie's effort has attracted global news coverage, but after a week she's only raised $15k. See https://twitter.com/ValeriePlame/status/900444754139373569.
Now, for our group, Valerie's efforts open at least two opportunities:
1) clarify our mission and values, using this campaign as a healthy exercise on where we stand, and
2) benefit from the new public energy around #BuyTwitter.
Where do we start?
Jessica Riley Thu 24 Aug 2017 12:51AM
Plame is a former CIA agent. Buying Twitter seems a strange 'first step' to get Trump kicked off Twitter. Why not use her notoriety to start a petition to hand to the board? Wouldnt that be easier? I think reaching out to her and informing her of our knowledge and advanced campaign already in progress is a good idea. We should consider asking her questions about her motivations before offering to combine our efforts. I don't know if someone who worked for the CIA would welcome platform coop models at all.
Rosen Dimov Thu 24 Aug 2017 5:29AM
Hi I agree that working with Valerie has both pros and cons. However even in the worst case that she just tries to abuse #BuyTwitter this will attract more supporters to the movement and create an immune system against potential hijackers. Having said that, I already shared Valerie's fundraising call with my network and my organisation's community. I would be happy to see and contribute to a dialogue between her and a contact group from us. :bird:
Samuele Bozzoni Thu 24 Aug 2017 1:27PM
For this series of reasons, I think it would be wise to look for a discussion and a collaboration with her!
What moves this person does not seem to me very clear and even the fact she is moving individually makes me think she's looking for some form of personal public visibility, but maybe we should try to open a space of discussion directly with her
Nathan Schneider Thu 24 Aug 2017 4:01PM
I'm a bit wary of turning #buyTwitter into something so politically partisan. On the other hand, this is a level of momentum it would be great for us to participate in.
The big question for me: Is this Plume effort going to involve cooperative ownership and governance of the shares being bought? That's critical.
Matthew Cropp Fri 25 Aug 2017 3:23AM
So, checking google searches and the hashtag, her campaign seems to have eclipsed any mention of the co-op model along influential vectors. Which seems to mean, before losing a bunch of co-op related content to a crowd-out memory hole, we should make a point of asking her and generally mixing #platformcoop back into #buytwitter. One Tweet @ Her Here
Danny Spitzberg Fri 25 Aug 2017 5:47AM
Who here wants to help write a Twitter bot that automates the enormous and grueling labor of replying to tweets mentioning #BuyTwitter and pointing them to a cooperative alternative, a long game for democracy instead of a short game publicity stunt?
Chris Cook Fri 25 Aug 2017 9:51AM
On the subject of 'son of Twitter' http://nirvana.io/?lrRef=O6SWTw
Alan Cyment Fri 25 Aug 2017 12:53PM
I can! Let's talk on Slack
I've never developed one, but I'm a quick learner
Emily Martinez Fri 25 Aug 2017 4:55PM
Hi Alan, Don't know if this is of any help: https://botwiki.org/tutorials/twitterbots/ Also, this tutorial by Daniel Shiffman helped me a lot. If you follow Daniel's tutorial, you can probably skip a lot of the Processing examples, and just follow his setup for node + Twitter API + Twit + Heroku. It's easy, and fun.
Hailey Cooperrider · Wed 23 Aug 2017 11:10PM
Really interesting. Reading the thread, there were a lot of "this is anti free speech" claims, which it might help to dispel.
Also another person arguing that you don't need a controlling share to get this done, and a strategy of influencing current board and shareholders with a minority share could work. Seems like people in this group bring a lot of knowledge and insight about that arena, and help her hone her strategy.
Maybe reaching out to Ms. Plame and showing the depth of knowledge and strategic thinking this group can offer? I'm guessing she also doesn't have much of an idea for how the company would be run after "we" buy it. She might really welcome platform coop models and methods.
She of course brings a lot of visibility, but maybe there's a reason to avoid allying with her?