The Fine Line or Twitter’s Multi-Million Ruble Pitch to RT | MUSIC • TECHNOLOGY • POLICY

So in existentially planet-shattering news, here’s a big reveal–Russia Today is a propaganda arm of the Russian Federation.  Shocking, I know.  That’s right, Russia Today is the Voice of Putin (or as the Russia Today cable channel is now known–RT–a pet name kind of like a cross between ET and Joe Camel).

But–but, you see Twitter DIDN’T know!  Those sneaky Russkies at it again!  Who could have tapped into the Silicon Valley big brain to figure out RT buying political ads was

Thanks to Olivia Solon reporting in the Guardian, we now know that the Twitter stupidity–the really dumb-as-rocks, insanely grabasstick, too wildly improbably even for Silicon Valley, one celled amoeba kind of stupid–was really the best thinking of the Twitter elites.

Yes, Twitter actually pitched RT for millions of advertising during the 2016 Presidential campaign.  But they did it Silicon Valley style–or rather in too-stupid-for-Silicon Valley-style–with a Powerpoint.

RT has released Twitter’s election advertising sales pitch, which shows the social media company vying for millions of dollars from the Russian state-funded news outlet in the run-up to the 2016 US presidential election.

The publication of the pitch comes the day after Twitter announced it would stop taking advertising from all accounts owned by RT, formerly Russia Today, and Sputnik as US lawmakers continue to investigate the impact of foreign-sponsored “information operations” on the 2016 election.

Twitter said in a blogpost on Thursday that its decision was based on its own investigations and the US intelligence community’s conclusion that both RT and Sputnik attempted to interfere with the election on behalf of the Russian government.

That’s right–Twitter had to be told by the IC that RT was in cahoots with VP.  Who could ever have seen that one coming?  Can you imagine the gossip over breakfast at Buck’s?  Did you know…RT was controlled by Putin?  Yes!  The CIA says so!  Who knew?

But it gets better:

RT published Twitter’s slide deck to “set the record straight” and highlight how Twitter had pushed hard to get the Russian news organization to spend millions on the platform to expand the reach of its election coverage through a package of ads including promoted tweets, videos and customized emojis.

Yes, that’s right.  Emojis.

Hot tip for the Twitterati:  If someone wants to buy ruble-denominated emojis, run the other way.

It’s a very, very fine line.

 

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