However, this gift wasn't uniformly welcomed on the Left, as the blue check has become a symbol of supporting conservatives and Musk.

The Famous and “Influential”

I poured through a database of 5,000 names (link below for paid subscribers) to uncover who received a blue check this week— many against their will. Normally a subscription costs between $8 and $11 a month.

Among those newly verified are San Francisco Mayor London Breed, President Biden's granddaughter Naomi Biden, and the Biden-Harris campaign account @BidenHQ.

Celebrities forced into blue chek status include Morgan Freeman, Drew Barrymore, Scottie Pippen, Willie Nelson, Sacha Baron Cohen, Billy Crystal, Jamie Lee Curtis, Jessica Biel, Carrie Fischer, Kevin Bacon and Howie Mandel.

Several left-wing media outlets and reporters were suddenly verified, including The Boston Globe, Bob Woodward, The New York Daily News, Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, Chris Matthews, The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, CNN’s Dana Bash, Kate Bolduan and Erin Burnett.

Former politicians like gun-control advocate Gabby Giffords and MSNBC contributor Michael Steele were also verified. Democratic strategist James Carville also found a blue check next to his name.

Vaccine promoter Prof Peter Hotez MD expressed surprise when he noticed his account changed.

Liberal Protest

Claire McCaskill, the former Democrat Senator and current MSNBC analyst, wanted it removed from her account because it “means you pay Elon.”

Rapper Lil Nas X posted: “on my soul i didn’t pay for twitter blue, u will feel my wrath tesla man!”

“The Wire” creator David Simon posted a series of profanity-laced tweets about being verified. Musk replied to one of them, saying “Such ingrates” with a laughing emoji. 

Simon and “Star Trek” actress Jeri Ryan found there is a setting to hide the blue check while retaining the premium benefits.

Media Protest

Some reporters exposed their bias through outrage about the blue check.

The Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson posted: “...this platform has given me a blue checkmark that I DID NOT ASK OR PAY FOR. Wha'?”

“The Atlantic” writer Tom Nichol, who has “legacy blue check” in his bio, critized the move, stating it was done “to obscure the difference between sensible folks and people who will pay eight dollars to Elon Musk.”

Reporter Aaron Rupar got his blue check back this week and posted to his almost 900,000 followers: “My wife just offered me condolences on my new blue check.”

Twitter’s Power

Although only about 20% of Americans are on X/Twitter, it weilds considerable influence. I’d say it’s the most effective way to follow and reach elected officials and the media directly.

Musk's changes aimed to foster more free speech and amplify conservative voices compared to the other major social media platforms.

In response, former Twitter CEO and Facebook started alternatives to X such as Blue Sky and Threads. Many reporters went to those sites, but I’ve noticed they come back to Twitter when they have breaking news.

The only major politicians who doesn’t use X is former President Donald Trump who uses Truth Social, his social media company that he just sold for billions.

Legacy Blue Checks Are Back

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My frustration with social media came after I wrote here about Bluesky, the all-liberal platform competing with Twitter. In response, I got swarmed and attacked on Bluesky.

So as I sat on the grass on the 4th of July, staring at the black sky, waiting for the fireworks, I decided I wouldn’t give strangers on the internet more ammo to upset me.

On July 5, Mark Zuckerberg released his latest social media app Threads to compete with Twitter. I’ve written before about how social media is addictive and harmful to society, but I keep falling for Silicon Valley’s tricks. 

Race to Threads

Meta’s adrenaline-rush trick was to launch by giving users numbers to show how early they joined. I immediately downloaded Threads and signed up for an account by linking to my Instagram. I’m number 663,776. As of Monday morning, there are 100 million users. Twitter has 250 million.

Once I got the app, I raced to grab the at emilymiller handle but couldn’t get it. (I’m stuck with emilymillerDC because it’s tied to Instagram.) Then I broke my promise to myself to not post on social media. I wrote on Threads about the app, which was neither interesting nor necessary content.

Threads had an enormously successful launch. Capitol Hill leaders, corporate brands, media outlets, celebrities, athletes and influencers are all on Threads already.

Analysts say Elon Musk’s Twitter is “tanking.”

Threads is being called the “Twitter killer” in major media reports. (I can’t find the source of the quote, so let me know in the comments if you can.)

Kindler, gentler site

Zuckerberg claims that Threads will be a kindler, gentler platform.

“The vision for Threads is to create an open and friendly public space for conversation.” Zuck wrote, “We hope to take what Instagram does best and create a new experience around text, ideas, and discussing what's on your mind.”

Twitter has always been a site to get your news. The head of Instagram and Threads, Adam Mosseri, said Threads is not doing that model.

The goal isn't to replace Twitter… Politics and hard news are inevitably going to show up on Threads - they have on Instagram as well to some extent - but we're not going to do anything to encourage those verticals.

Billionaire cage fights

In response to Zuck’s rainbows and kittens, Elon Musk is trying to salvage his $44 billion investment. He tweeted Monday, “You will get more laughs from this app than everything else combined.”

The billionaires want us to all get along online while they wage war.

Zuckerberg and Musk are planning a literal cage fight against each other. Musk is tweeting and calling Zuck names. He is threatening to sue Meta for stealing intellectual property. He has censored Threads from being searchable on Twitter.

Meta is reportedly censoring conservatives on Threads like it does on Instagram and Facebook.

Changing habits

There is no way any of these megalomanic billionaires can create a “friendly public space” for civil debate or communities. But we can all do our part to not contribute to it.

Over two years ago, I wrote to you about what the tech giants in Silicon Valley are doing to us: 

They know the red notifications make us subliminally think it’s an emergency and our adrenaline rushes as we click. They know it’s the engagement with others that creates an addiction to make us keep coming back for more fighting. They know we are dehumanizing each other by the fake name accounts and tiny pictures that are impossible to look at eyes. 

I asked

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Once inside the Bluesky club, I could quickly see I was not wanted. Everyone is liberal, and most are intolerant. My intuition was proven right when Twitter went down over the weeke…

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Brendan Whitworth is a telegenic, straight, white man in his 40s. Whitworth doesn’t look like the woke mob that is forcing us all to hear incessantly about transgender issues that affect a teeny tiny percent of the population. Yet, the CEO is breaking every rule of crisis communications to bow to the mob and sacrifice beer sales.

No apology, no regrets

Bud Light was the number one beer sold in America until the company made a “brand deal” with popular transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney. Now the beer is down in sales by almost 30% compared to last year.

After three months of continued protests, Whitworth went on CBS News with Gayle King on Wednesday (watch below) seemingly to try to save his company. The CEO, wearing white sneakers with a blue suit, was clearly media trained not to say anything controversial.

Whitworth said the company would continue to support LGBTQ rights. He promised to listen to his customers better. He appealed for mercy for his employees and wholesalers affected by the beer boycott.

The PR team trained Whitworth too well. He refused to answer if he would do the same marketing shtick again with Mulvaney nor even concede that it was obviously a mistake. The CEO, who is a former Marine and CIA officer, made a lame attempt to fix his brand mess by saying of Anheuser-Busch:

It really is an American institution and, it’s to me, one degree of separation away from the United States — the American flag.

I don’t drink Bud Light (or any beer, too many carbs) and don’t participate in boycotts. But I don’t want the flag mixed up with this mess.

Not just one beer can

A rule of crisis communication is to get out all the facts that you know. Whitworth said on CBS the controversy was over “one can” that was “a gift.” That’s not true.

Mulvaney said on Thursday on TikTok that the brand deal included posting a “sponsored video.” If you don’t know, Mulvaney was a man who got famous for making TikTok videos showing transitioning to a woman over the past year. (I’ve half-heartedly googled to try to figure out if Mulvaney had THAT kind of surgery, but I don’t really want the details.)

The trans influencer said the company sent a personalized can of Bud Light to celebrate a year of “girlhood” as part of the deal. Mulvaney posted this video advertising the beer on Instagram on April 1:

Mulvaney promoted the beer as a “Bud Light Parter” and announced a March Madness giveaway. There was a second video of Mulvaney in a bathtub with cans of Bud Light.

It was obviously a marketing deal, and Whitworth should have explained it. Whitworth said that the company has been doing LGBTQ marketing since the last 1990s. CBS showed a rainbow bottle of Bud Light from 2019. But gay rights and transgender rights are not the same thing to many beer drinkers.

Brew-ha-ha ignored

When in a crisis, it’s important to respond immediately. Whitworth went silent for a full month while all hell broke loose over the trans videos. While Aheuser-Busch was dark, Kid Rock posted this video shooting Bud Light cans with an AR-style rifle.

It took a full month for Whitworth to post this mealy mouth written statement about beer bringing people together. The CBS interview was much too late to fix the brand disaster.

Two execs at the company were put on leave (or some say fired) over the brew-ha-ha (get it?) The company launched a new summer PR campaign to supposedly appeal to its customers, but no one predicts a turnaround at this point.

.3%-5% transgender

When crafting a crisis communications plan, you determine who is your target audience. In the case of Bud Light, they need to reach the conservative men who stopped drinking their beer. Instead, the company is appealing to liberal kids.

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This debate about gender rights is over a tiny percentage of people. We can see this in a recent Pew poll that 5% of adults under 30 say they are “trans or nonbinary” compared to merely 0.3% of those 50 and older. The kids say the numbers are increasing in younger age groups because they feel more comfortable being open about “gender fluidity”, but

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