The Twitter: Blogtown, PDX, Portland Mercury

Jose Canseco Probably Shouldn't Be Allowed on Twitter

Paul Constant — Wed, 22 May 2013 14:14:42 -0700

Jose Canseco, who has been accused by both of his ex-wives of domestic violence in the past, was approached by police officers in Las Vegas as part of a rape investigation, according to Canseco's Twitter feed. How did Canseco respond? By tweeting the name of the woman Canseco says has accused him of rape, along with what he claimed to be a photo of her and her phone number. The tweets—there were two clusters of them—have since been deleted, but BuzzFeed has screen captures of them (with the name and personal information redacted).

Now, people are calling for Canseco to be kicked off of Twitter for posting the personal information of a woman whom he believes has accused him of rape. I used to follow Canseco on Twitter because he was kind of funny, but his propensity to angrily publish the personal information of whatever woman he's obsessing over—and he's done this on multiple occasions—was way too creepy for my tastes.

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Tweet Wars: Michael Ian Black vs. Marc Maron

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Tue, 21 May 2013 15:29:00 -0700

Whether this is an actual Twitter catfight or a fakey promotional stunt, few people do passive-aggressive MEOW PFFSST! PFFSST! tweet wars like the one Michael Ian Black and Marc Maron are currently engaged in. Here's just a sample. A SAMPLE!

Meeee-OW!! Read the entire war here.

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Twitter Vs. the New York Times: Who Will Survive?

Paul Constant — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:44:38 -0700

Here's a provocative headline from CNN Money:

Peter Thiel: Twitter will outlast the New York Times

Sounds like an old-fashioned bar bet to me!

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Best Twitter Conversation About Fluoride of the Day! (Perhaps Ever?)

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:59:46 -0700

Follow @IanKarmel and read his weekly column "Portland as Fuck." Oh, and for more info on that idiotic fluoride/Nazi myth, there's this. Seriously, guys. Seriously. SERIOUSLY.

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The 15 Commandments (of Twitter)

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 13:29:06 -0800

Courtesy of Doghouse Diaries, here is perhaps the ultimate unwritten Laws of Twitter list—presented in convenient "score card" format.

While I generally abhor anyone one person or organization declaring "rules" for the internet—I thought this was pretty spot on. Notice anything they missed?

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Old People Reading Rob Delaney's Tweets

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:44:35 -0800

We are all in agreement that comedian @robdelaney has one of the most heeeelarious twitter accounts in the Twitterverse—and I'm sorry I just said "Twitterverse." Fuck a "Twitterverse." WHERE WAS I?? Oh, yeah. To celebrate Rob Delaney on his show, Jimmy Kimmel gets a bunch of old people to read Delaney's tweets... and they do a great job! GREAT JOB, OLD PEOPLE! You can die now.

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That Motherfucking Power-Hungry, Self-Aggrandized Bigot In the Stupid Fucking Hat Joins Twitter

Dan Savage — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 11:29:32 -0800

And the pope has lots of followers...

...but I'm one of them. Hard to say how many other folks, like me and Rob Delaney, are following the pope for shits and giggles. But some folks are following the pope because they're still pretty pissed about all those raped kids:

The first papal tweet has been the subject of intense curiosity—as well as merciless jokes, criticism and commentary. "The pope has an iPad?" comedian Jon Stewart asked earlier this year. The Onion satirical newspaper ran a piece "Pope tweets picture of self with God." And in perhaps a more long-term and problematic issue for the Vatican, the (at)Pontifex handle was flooded with negative messages from users remarking on the clerical sex abuse scandal.

My first message to the pope? Just wanted to share one of my favorite YouTube videos of all time with Bennie, in case he missed it:

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Dumb Internet Troll Pamela Weiss Gets OWNED by Anderson Cooper

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Tue, 20 Nov 2012 10:44:54 -0800

Anderson Cooper don't take no mess—especially on his Twitter machine from dumb internet troll Pamela Weiss.

Here's that original "flan tweet" Anderson was talking about.

Go Pamela Weiss—and troll no more. More hilarious Anderson burn tweets here.

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Sweet Debate Tweets! (Ann Coulter Edition)

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:44:18 -0700

First, Ann Coulter said this:

Then the internet said this:

Oh... much more after the jump.

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Sweet Debate Tweets!

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:14:36 -0700

Who doesn't like funny debate tweets? NOBODY THAT'S WHO! (Except gangbangers and CHINA.)

More after the jump!

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Twitter Apologizes for Being Dicks

Paul Constant — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 15:15:00 -0700

Yesterday, Twitter banned sportswriter Guy Adams for calling out NBC's terrible Olympics coverage. It looked like Twitter suspended Adams's account because he was mocking NBC, and NBC has a corporate sponsorship with Twitter for the duration of the Olympics.

Overnight, the news broke that Twitter in fact alerted NBC to Adams's tweets and urged them to file a complaint, which eventually got Adams suspended from Twitter. This is about as shitty as it gets. Twitter is a communications service, and they should not have any control over what gets said on their service. They especially should not protect their corporate partners from criticism. Imagine your Hotmail account banning you because you're complaining about your XBox not working in an email to your friends and you have an idea of how bad this is.

Now, Twitter's general counsel, Alex Macgillivray, writes that Twitter has reinstated Adams's account and says that the company apologizes for their actions:

That said, we want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.

As I stated earlier, we do not proactively report or remove content on behalf of other users no matter who they are. This behavior is not acceptable and undermines the trust our users have in us. We should not and cannot be in the business of proactively monitoring and flagging content, no matter who the user is — whether a business partner, celebrity or friend. As of earlier today, the account has been unsuspended, and we will actively work to ensure this does not happen again.

This is a good start, but Twitter had better make sure that they don't have too many more accidents like this one; people don't like it when their communication platform starts making judgment calls on their behalf.

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Celebrity Mean Tweets!

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 14:29:07 -0700

Jimmy Kimmel has been gathering cruel, taunting tweets directed at celebrities, and then asking the celebrities to read them on air. Here are the best. (OMG, I WANT TO SEND A MEAN TWEET TO SNOOKI JUST SO I CAN SEE THAT PRICELESS LOOK ON HER FACE AGAIN!!)

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Giving the Homophobes the Attention They're Looking For

Dan Savage — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 13:29:15 -0700

You need a thick gay skin if you're gonna to follow @homophobes on Twitter.

The man behind @homophobes—let's call him TMB@H for short—searches Twitter for hateful anti-gay tweets, which he turns around and re-tweets to his 8500 followers. TMB@H's in his early twenties, lives in the United States, and is lucky enough to be working in his chosen field... and that’s as much personal information as TMB@H is comfortable divulging. I met TMB@H in person at a big gay thing we both happened to be attending sometime over the last twelve months... and that's as specific as TMB@H wants me to get about when and where we met. (You would jealously guard your privacy too if pissing off violently homophobic bigots was your hobby.) We spoke by phone about what he hopes to accomplish with @homophobes.

······················

What motivated you start @homophobes?

A couple of years ago some law passed, something related to gay marriage, and I wanted to see what people were saying about it on Twitter. So I did a search and I found this one guy who said something really horrible—gay people are all sick and we don’t deserve to get married or something like that—and I re-tweeted him from my own account. A lot of my friends started talking about this guy’s tweet and some of them tweeted replies to him. That’s when I thought, “Oh, it might be a good idea to create an account to just do this, to re-tweet homophobes.” Just for kicks I checked to see if “@homophobes” was available as a Twitter name. I was surprised that it was. I really scored there.

Your account info says, “Giving homophobes the attention they’re looking for.” What kind of attention do you hope the homophobes you re-tweet get?

A lot of these people have never been challenged before. They say these things because they’ve heard them, or it’s what their friends all think, or it’s what their parents told them. They’ve literally never been challenged before. All their friends feel the same way! When I re-tweet them and people respond, maybe it will make them think about what they’re saying for the first time. And then maybe they’ll think twice before tweeting something like that again.

There have been a few people who’ve gone back and deleted their homophobic tweets. And there have been some people who apologized for their homophobic tweets. That’s only happened a few times. But being re-tweeted by @homophobes has changed a few people.

MORE AFTER THE JUMP...

How do you find homophobic tweets?

I have a long list of saved searches. If someone uses the phrase “gay people” in a tweet, it’s usually negative. The same goes for, “If I had a gay son.” Those can be really depressing. Then there’s “gay abomination,” “gay marriage” and, of course, any combination of “gay” and “bible.” And I have a search on “no offense.” So many people will say, “no offense,” right before saying something really offensive. And followers send me tweets.

You’re a gay man. Doesn’t wading through homophobic insults and 140-character anti-gay rants all day get to you? Some of the stuff you find is really violent.

It doesn’t faze me. Some of the things these people say are just so stupid. It makes me realize how stupid these people are. Their arguments are so stupid. It makes me laugh.

Do you regard @homophobes as a form of activism?

Yeah, definitely. One of the valuable things about this thing is that there are a lot of people out there who don’t think homophobia is a problem or that it can’t really be that bad. Even some gay people out there think homophobia isn’t a problem. Maybe they grew up in towns that were really gay friendly, or they never had any problems with bullying, or their parents never gave them any grief about it. But even some gay people don’t realize how bad it can be.

Imagine being the kid of someone who sent out one of those “If I had a gay son” tweets. Or one of those violently homophobic #ToMyUnBornChild tweets.

Right. Seeing these real tweets that come up every day can make people realize that homophobia is still a real problem and that it hurts real people.

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Jeri Ryan's "Epic Costco Run": CONDEMN OR ALLOW?!?

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 13:29:25 -0700

Just saw this tweet from Star Trek: Voyager's Jeri Ryan (Seven of Nine).

I don't like the idea of Jeri Ryan doing "epic Costco runs." DO YOU? (Discuss your stance in the comments.)

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I Am So Disappointed in Twitter

Paul Constant — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 10:59:00 -0700

It's no secret that I love Twitter. It's my social network of choice, featuring none of the clutter of Facebook and all the inventiveness of a literary form. It's also more freewheeling than a lot of social networks, rewarding collaboration and promiscuous following habits. And I like how public it is. Anyone who's used Twitter for a while knows that private direct messages will bite you on the ass; it's better to keep everything above-board and in the public eye.

Which is why I'm especially disappointed to read this on The Verge:

Yesterday at noon Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibi sent the innagural Thunderclap, when he and 1,921 other people Tweeted simultaneously at a pair of U.S. senators. Taibi used an app, Thunderclap, built by a small team in New York. The service lets Twitter users break above the din by organizing for a mass messaging, a wave of tweets that hits at the same time.

Twitter suspended the startup's OAuth token today, after it sent its second "thunderclap" to Congress. Twitter told the Thunderclap team it was violating the site's terms of service by "sending multiple @ mentions and automating sending tweets."

There are quite a few apps that allow you to automate Twitter posts. So unless Thunderclap is in danger of breaking Twitter—in which case Twitter needs to be fixed—I have to assume that Twitter doesn't want to be used as a political tool. The Verge speculates that Twitter interpreted Thunderclap as spam, but until Twitter confirms or denies this, it's best to assume the worst with tech companies. It won't take too many of these mysterious judgments delivered from on high before people start to get suspicious of Twitter, and once that exciting sense of experimentation is gone, Twitter will die.

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Mayor Adams Now Responsible for Reminding You to Put Your Garbage Out

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:44:35 -0700

This dingaling twitters:

Mayor Adams responds:

Dingaling responds back:

Can you seriously blame him for not wanting to run again? Portland isn't a daycare, dingalings!

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Mercury Dining's Twitter Account!

Clare Gordon — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:15:58 -0700

We warned you, Blogtown. Resident food correspondant Chris Onstad has linked our omnipotence in the dining world to the twittersphere, and you should PAY ATTENTION! We covered Cochon 555, Chris took you on the road for grits, doughnuts, and everything in between, and this lucky girl gets to show you Sake Fest tonight at the Governor Hotel... and if you're not following us, you're missing it all! Last chance before you miss something else: follow the Portland Mercury's Food and Drink Twitter feed @Pdxmercfd. All the cool kids are doing it.

Tickets for Sake Fest are still available online until 3 pm and at the door for an extra $10, by the way... see you there!

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Hashtags from the End of Humanity

David Schmader — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 13:44:00 -0700

Exhibit A: All the tech-savvy youth inspired to parade their racism by The Hunger Games' (textually appropriate) use of black actors in key parts. One example among the many collected at the Tumblr Hunger Games Tweets:

As Dodai Stewart at Jezebel writes, "The posts go on and on and on. It's not just a couple of tweets, it's not just a coincidence. There's an underlying rage, coming out as overt prejudice and plain old racism. Sternberg is called a "black bitch," a "nigger" and one person writes that though he pictured Rue with "darker skin," he "didn't really take it all the way to black." It's as if that is the worst possible thing a person could be."

And as the owner of the Tumblr writes:

All these… people… read the Hunger Games. Clearly, they all fell in love with and cared about Rue. Though what they really fell in love with was an image of Rue that they'd created in their minds. A girl that they knew they could love and adore and mourn at the thought of knowing that she's been brutally killed. And then the casting is revealed (or they go see the movie) and they're shocked to see that Rue is black....These people are MAD that the girl that they cried over while reading the book was "some black girl" all along. So now they're angry. Wasted tears, wasted emotions. It's sad to think that had they known that she was black all along, there would have been [no] sorrow or sadness over her death.

Compounding the horror and further justifying my post title is Exhibit B: All the tech-savvy youth inspired to pre-bash their unborn gay chidren via the hashtag #tomyunbornchild.

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"Hoodie Killed Trayvon Martin as Surely as George Zimmerman" UPDATE: Now With Video

Bobby Roberts — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 09:05:31 -0700

Presented to you without commentary, judgement, analysis, or insight: the words of journalist Geraldo Rivera. This account was not hacked, nor are these images mocked up. These are the last three things he tweeted to his 15,000+ followers as of 8:50am

UPDATE: Now with video of Rivera verbalizing his thought process.

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New Mercury Food and Drink Twitter Account

Chris Onstad — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 10:13:32 -0700

For the sake of timeliness in lighter coverage, I've created a Twitter account for up-to-the-minute food and drink news in this town, in my life, and wherever gastronomically germane things are occurring. Follow @PDXMercFD on Twitter to stay in the loop.

We inaugurated the feed yesterday Sunday, March 11, with late afternoon coverage of the very sexy Cochon555, "Five chefs, five pigs, five winemakers." Portlanders will remember this event as, aside from interesting things, the scene of a sensationally-covered fistfight a few years back.

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Someone Should Go to Jail for This

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 09:59:56 -0800

This just came over the Twitter feed about an hour ago:

When I saw it, the very first thought to jump in my head was "GODDAMMIT, ERIK HENRIKSEN!!" For some reason I automatically blamed Erik for this absolutely terrible Dave Coulier joke. And I'm not sure why. All I know is that somebody needs to go to jail for this.

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Good Girls' Guide: Dominatrix for Dummies at Theater! Theatre!

Jessie Drake — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 09:29:14 -0800

Eleanor O'Brien of Dance Naked Productions has an alter ego, and she's here to help. The Self Help Domme hosts O'Brien's new one woman show, Good Girls Guide: Dominatrix for Dummies , which is based on O'Brien's experience taking a job as a professional dominatrix at The Jewel Box while pursing an acting career in NYC. The kicker is that she had no previous experience as a dominatrix, so it is a play about finding herself more than it is about finding her way around a dungeon.

Don't expect this show to teach you how to control a bullwhip or tie up your love slave in five minutes or less; this Domme would rather whip your self esteem into shape and order you to worship yourself. The one-woman show is tightly crafted, and O'Brien eases in and out of characters to weave a sensitive and sexy story with a brutally honest sense of humor.

The show includes audience participation, so you better be comfortable sitting with your eyes closed in a room full of people while visualizing yourself going down on yourself, or with hugging and/or spanking the person to your left. I really recommend bringing an open-minded date, and staying after for the post-show dance party, open mic, or cocktails. You can follow the Self Help Dominatrix on Twitter or check out the SelfHelpDom website, which offers memes with Advice from the Dom like the one above.

Catch the show this weekend at 8pm at Theater! Theater on 3420 SE Belmont. Tickets are $15 online or $20 at the door

Thursday Feb 23: Post show Q&A
Friday Feb 24: Post show Dance Party
Saturday Feb 25: Post show Erotic Open Mic
Sunday Feb 26: Post show cocktails at The Blue Monk

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Today in TV that Doesn't Exist, But I Wish it Did

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 09:59:44 -0800

Adam Scott (Ben from Parks and Recreation) tweeted the picture below with the following message:

Check out this photo from a pilot I worked on in '03—PHILLY JUSTICE

PHILLY JUSTICE!! Starring Adam Scott, Paul Rudd, Amy Poehler, Rashida Jones, and Katherine Hahn. A Stephen J. Cannell Production! (OMG, if this existed, I'd never stop watching it.)

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Oregon Republican Wants to Outlaw Online Organizing

Goldy — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 13:59:00 -0800

If you're wondering how much right-wingers truly hate America, you need look no further than Republican-sponsored Oregon Senate Bill 1534, which would create the felony crime of "aggravated solicitation" for, you know, tweeting...

(2) A person commits the crime of aggravated solicitation if, with the intent of causing two or more other persons to engage in specific conduct constituting a crime, the person uses an electronic communication to command or solicit other persons to engage in that conduct at a specific time and at a specific location.
(3) In a prosecution under this section, the state need not prove that the electronic communication was received by specific persons or that the defendant intended for specific persons to engage in the criminal activity.

That's right, if you use Twitter, or Facebook, or a blog, or email to help organize, or even just let people know about some event, where some crime is ultimately committed, you could be found guilty of a felony, punishable by as much as 20 years in prison. And prosecutors don't even need to prove that anybody actually read your tweet, or that you ever intended for a crime to be committed.

For example, let's say you tweeted (or retweeted) "Come join me at today's Occupy Portland protest at Chapman Square", where some folks were ultimately arrested for misdemeanor trespassing. Under SB-1534, you could be charged with a Class C felony!

More after the jump...

Sure, the bill is DOA in Oregon's Democratically controlled Senate Judiciary Committee, and likely unconstitutional to boot (it is one thing to criminalize yelling "fire" in a crowded move theater, it's another thing to criminalize tweeting "Hey, let's go to the movies"), but the very fact that a full third of the Oregon State Senate would attach their names to such an offensively anti-free speech piece of legislation, illustrates just how quickly our nation could slide into fascism.

This is the type of legislation that dictators would use to crack down on and repress an Arab Spring. No American legislator who advocates for such a stunningly anti-American piece of legislation should ever be taken seriously again. And yet, they are.

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The Twitter: Blogtown, PDX, Portland Mercury

Jose Canseco Probably Shouldn't Be Allowed on Twitter

Tweet Wars: Michael Ian Black vs. Marc Maron

Twitter Vs. the New York Times: Who Will Survive?

Best Twitter Conversation About Fluoride of the Day! (Perhaps Ever?)

The 15 Commandments (of Twitter)

Old People Reading Rob Delaney's Tweets

More Celebs Reading Mean Tweets!

That Motherfucking Power-Hungry, Self-Aggrandized Bigot In the Stupid Fucking Hat Joins Twitter

Dumb Internet Troll Pamela Weiss Gets OWNED by Anderson Cooper

Sweet Debate Tweets! (Ann Coulter Edition)

Sweet Debate Tweets!

Twitter Apologizes for Being Dicks

Celebrity Mean Tweets!

Giving the Homophobes the Attention They're Looking For

Jeri Ryan's "Epic Costco Run": CONDEMN OR ALLOW?!?

I Am So Disappointed in Twitter

Mayor Adams Now Responsible for Reminding You to Put Your Garbage Out

Mercury Dining's Twitter Account!

Hashtags from the End of Humanity

"Hoodie Killed Trayvon Martin as Surely as George Zimmerman" UPDATE: Now With Video

New Mercury Food and Drink Twitter Account

Someone Should Go to Jail for This

Good Girls' Guide: Dominatrix for Dummies at Theater! Theatre!

Today in TV that Doesn't Exist, But I Wish it Did

Oregon Republican Wants to Outlaw Online Organizing