When is a view not a view?
When it’s counted on Twitter – that is, on X.
I've probably "viewed" Trump's interview a dozen times when I when to Tucker's profile page and it auto played or saw it playing in the feed and when others shared it. But I haven't "watched" almost any of it. "Views" does not equal people watching it. https://t.co/SkqUe0Puhi
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) August 24, 2023
Much more at the link.
This approach is standard operating procedure for Trump – what he does is always the biggest, the best, the most. In this case, not only is the tactic aimed at positioning for the primaries, but it’s also about sticking it to Fox News on the part of Tucker Carlson. Trump supporters will trumpet (pun intended) the word about the yuuuge number of views, and many people will buy it. Plus, I have no doubt that a lot of people did in fact watch his interview with Tucker. How many? We don’t know.
Trump is an inveterate braggart, but when he was president he often – not always, but often – actually delivered the goods. To me it’s obvious that views don’t mean much and in particular a very significant number of the people watching his Tucker interview might be Trump-haters shouting expletives at their screens. But what’s that old saying? “There is no such thing as bad publicity.”
I didn’t watch the Trump interview. I’ve been saturated with Trump for eight years, and I don’t need to watch another sit-down with Carlson, who rubs me the wrong way. I think I’m very very familiar with Trump. But I was unfamiliar with many of the other candidates, and curious, so I watched the debate instead.
I wasn’t aware of the video “autoplay” feature of Twitter/X since I rarely follow Twitter links and have never even had an account. As an aside, I detest any autoplaying of video and audio in general.
But I do know that using the “views” number as a metric for determining success versus the Fox News debates is enormously misleading for a whole host of reasons beyond that autoplay nonsense.
– We all know that Twitter/X is endlessly beseiged by bots despite Elon’s efforts. It’s a certainty that a siginficant portion of the Trump/Tucker views are bots.
– Then there’s foreigners. A very large number of non US residents are curious about Trump and Tucker.
– Then there’s “hate watchers”, a phenomon I find odd. Why would you watch an interview with someone you despise?
– Then of course there’s people who’ve watched it many times. Unless I’m wrong I believe that each time counts as discreat “view”. So it’s pointless to equate each “view” with a single person.
So if it were even possible were to remove all the bots, all the foreigners, and all the haters, and only count individual US citizens who are likley voters as one “view”, it’s a virtual certainty that the true number of unqiue views would be lower, and likely far, far lower than the hundreds of millions that the current view count is actually at. We’ll never know the true number since it’s recondite for technical reasons.
Who knows? The true number might even still be quite a bit larger than the Fox debate viewership. But it’s silly for Trump boosters to act as if it’s a fact that it is.
All that said, I’d be all for hosting debates on Rumble and/or Twitter/X. But I know that a lot of older Republicans aren’t as net savvey so it might not be realistic at this time.
All of these social media/streaming numbers are dodgier than hell. Most of the streamers count views the same and there is a belief that this is one of the major holdups in the long running writers/actors strikes right now. The unions want to see the actual data from the streamers but they are resisting and the theory goes that they don’t want it known how few people are REALLY watching some of these things because it would be a massive blow to their stock price and their long term viability in an oversaturated market.
Go tell that to a number of Instapundit commentors.
SHIREHOME:
Lost cause.
There is also the geography issue. Fifty million views in Asia don’t translate into votes. Having it viewed by members of “JournoList” types would certainty drive other news stories.
But what is the population that the viewers come from?
Population in the sense that the word has in statistics.
Does the figure on how many people watch the super bowl include people outside the US or just people from the US?
There are people outside the US who have access to twitter/X and are watching an interview with Trump. A stereotype that exists outside the United States is that the residents of the United States are not aware of the world outside the United States. This stereotype is also often expressed by the US elite.
It is not only the US media that is obsessed with Trump.
When someone says they’ve had enough, I take them at their word. So I’ll just be quiet for a while.
I hate to say it, but regardless of the outcome of this tempest in a twitter teapot, our situation is like the one facing the Union in November, 1862. George McClellan was in charge of the Union Army, and fought a series of draws/losses with the smaller Confederate forces under Lee. McClellan was a competent general and good at organizing, all traditional qualities of military achievement, but he was skittish and afraid to commit to all-out action, creating a great deal of frustration. The Union dithered on until Grant was appointed by Lincoln to lead the Union Armies, eventually grinding down the Confederacy and emerging victorious. Grant was uncouth and lacking interest in the niceties of military etiquette, but as Lincoln observed, “He fights.” So it is with Trump. Every other republican “candidate” is McClellan.
Trump is a purposeful vessel of middle-class anger at our incompetent elite. I will crawl across broken glass to vote for him. The more they tell me, “no, you can’t choose him,” the more I love him. I rarely listen to him now. It suffices to know that he will bluster, brag and bloviate driving the David Brooks of the world crazy. That is what I want him to do. I guess he’s made me cruder. I love the mean tweets now when before I would cringe a little.
Would I like to see him admit that he got played by Fauci, Collins and big pharma. Sure. Can’t say that I would have done better. But he is the perfect weapon. I would hope he is under no delusions that he can make deals with people this time. Vivek says he will dismantle the permanent bureaucracy, but I feel certain trump will flush the torpedo tubes. Might be futile but better to bring this all to a head in 2024 than go back to BushMcSlimeDelecto. I despise the GOPe more than the Dems at this point.
I can see why Tucker might annoy. The laugh has grown on me. The man is smart with a keen analytical gift to present complex material but more importantly he has the courage to say that the emperor has no clothes. We need more Tuckers.
or like marius in the jugurthan wars,
https://marksimonappledaily.substack.com/p/trump-the-dissident-returns?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1767545&post_id=136418569&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
Twitter and Tucker have their own reasons for pumping up the video’s importance. So do some in the media and many on the internet. But doesn’t each tweet tell you how many times it’s been viewed? So the number and the story are there for anyone to use. Trump does have a big ego. Everything does have to be the biggest and the best, and DJT makes the most of stories like this one, but I don’t think one can blame him for this. Some things are “baked into” the system, not things Trump or his team did on their own.
The general standard has always been unique views, hasn’t it? I don’t know if X counts each separate view from the same device, but if someone views a site several times from the same device, I think the multiple views usually don’t count in internet traffic statistics. If X has a different policy, that should be made clear by the company and by the media. Sure, there are also bots watching. “Hate viewers” and foreigners should count, though, if one’s interest is how much attention something is getting.
Abraxas:
If you go to Twitter’s explanatory page, it appears that it counts all views and not just unique views. I’ve also read the a person doesn’t even have to view something to count as a view – people just have to scroll past it on their feed.
Banned Lizard:
I’m not sure what you’re referring to, but if it’s my reaction to the COVID links you have sometimes posted, a much better solution would be for you to cease posting COVID links that don’t prove what they supposedly say they prove, especially on threads that aren’t about COVID. There’s no need whatsoever for you to be silent. You are welcome to comment here.
Steve (retired/recovering lawyer):
Your point is fairly well-taken until you say that every other Republican candidate is McClellan – that is, doesn’t fight. DeSantis has certainly fought very hard on many fronts in Florida, including against the press. You don’t have to like him or want him to be the nominee, but he certainly has proven himself a fighter. And Vivek – a candidate I do not like – certainly has shown himself a verbal fighter. I have no idea what he’d do if in office. But to say Trump is the only fighter seems untrue to me.
Also, of course, McClellan didn’t have to win an election. Personalities are a factor in that, too.
Boy, first Julia Roberts and now this guy. America has a serious deficiency in the math department, I tell you whut.
Views and subscribers really don’t count for much unless they watch 90% of the video and other videos on a consistent basis. If daily network tv rotted your brain so does social media and Youtube – the modern day version of “personal tv” if we don’t count streaming services where the creator is the star/the host. This is why I sorta prefer blogs more over Youtube.