Tag: then
Hate widgets? Then you won’t like what Microsoft is up to in latest Windows 11 preview
Facebook Made BuzzFeed, Then Killed It
Who’s got Bobby Moore’s shirt? Tina had puzzled over its whereabouts – then came a call from the FA
Conservative social media platform Parler acquired and then immediately shut down by new owner
Parler has been acquired. Parler has also just been shut down.
On Friday, the digital media company Starboard announced that it had acquired Parler, the conservative social media platform. According to Starboard, the deal went through on Good Friday and it bought Parler for an undisclosed amount.
Following Starboard’s announcement on Friday, the company immediately shut down Parler’s website. A note on Parler.com reads “no reasonable person believes that a Twitter clone just for conservatives is a viable business any more.”
To be clear though, this isn’t an anti-conservative statement from Starboard. It’s strictly business. Starboard’s statement goes on to praise former Parler CEO George Farmer for Parler’s more recent move into providing alternative IT and cloud services solutions through its former parent company Parlament Technologies.
“We focus on working with groups that are advocating for or otherwise advancing conservative causes or conservative beliefs,” Starboard CEO Ryan Coyne told the Daily Caller News Foundation in 2021, back when Starboard was known as Olympic Media.
According to its social media platforms, Starboard offers digital marketing and ad agency services. In that same 2021 Daily Caller piece, the agency previously worked with current and former Republican Congress members like Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik, and Madison Cawthorn and conservative organizations like Turning Point USA.
“Parler’s large user base and additional strategic assets represent an enormous opportunity for Starboard to continue to build aggressively in our media and publishing business,” Starboard CEO Ryan Coyne said in a statement. “The team at Parler has built an exceptional audience and we look forward to integrating that audience across all of our existing platforms.”
Starboard says it’s going to use its acquisition to assess how the company can “begin servicing unsupported online communities.”
Parler grew in popularity following the 2020 presidential election as right-wing users sought out a more-friendly outlet to discuss conspiracy theories and share their anger over former president Donald Trump’s electoral defeat. The platform gained notoriety in the lead-up and immediate aftermath of the events of January 6th, 2021. On-the-ground media posted on Parler by Trump supporters as they stormed the Capitol building quickly spread on the internet.
Due to the hateful rhetoric found on the website, Apple and Google removed Parler’s mobile app from the App Store and Google Play store. Although Apple and Google eventually allowed Parler back after the social media platform implemented new content moderation rules, Parler’s popularity among its user base waned. New conservative platforms like Trump’s Truth Social quickly took its place as the preferred social media alternative. After a potential acquisition by Kanye West fell through, Parler laid off most of its employees earlier this year.
Apparently, there were still some users faithful to Parler who were upset by Starboard’s decision to abruptly close the platform.
“You closed the site without previous notice. Unbelievable,” wrote one user in the replies to Starboard’s Instagram announcement of its Parler purchase, complete with clown emojis.
“Thanks for the advanced warning,” replied another.
Elon Musk tweets, then deletes DMs from Matt Taibbi over his Substack snit
Elon Musk and one of his “Twitter Files” writers, Matt Taibbi, don’t seem to be on great terms right now, and that situation probably isn’t getting any better after Musk posted then deleted a DM conversation between the two of them.
Let me try to recap how we got to this point. I’m warning you now that it’s a bit of a mess.
- Taibbi, given access to Twitter information from Musk, published the first of many editions of the so-called “Twitter Files” that Musk believed would be a shocking exposé of former leadership.
- Taibbi also publishes Racket News, a Substack-based publication with more than 362,000 subscribers.
- On Wednesday, Substack announced a Twitter-like product called “Notes.”
- Late in the week, Twitter started restricting tweets…
I couldn’t work out why my bathroom STANK & was coated in orange grime… then I discovered old tenant’s dirty secret
A COUPLE were left horrified after finding the cause of the awful smell and muck plaguing their bathroom.
Julia Lang-Malone and her husband were baffled by the thick orange “grime” that continuously appeared in the corner of their shower.
Julia Lang-Malone prised her shower open to find hundreds of cigarette butts[/caption]
The pair were stunned that the former tenants had been smoking in the shower[/caption]
The couple had moved into the home on the Gold Coast, Australia, last year, but couldn’t get rid of the dirt no matter how many times it was cleaned.
Despite scrubbing the shower over and over again, the foul stench also continued to invade – and upset – their nostrils.
Julia noticed that no matter how much elbow grease she put into it, the smell and the grime would still reappear when she swilled it with water.
“You can not IMAGINE the smell,” she told her over 20,000 TikTok followers.
“Where is it coming from?! There it looks like big chunks of tobacco from cigarettes.”
The tenant continued to investigate the mystery stink, unaware that she was about to uncover the former renter‘s dirty little secret.
Julia continued to douse the area with clean water, which sent a slew of brown particles swishing around her plug hole.
Seconds later, she spotted the stomach-churning source of the vile scent that had been tormenting them for months.
A number of cigarette butts began to slide out – confirming Julia’s suspicions that the previous tenants had been shower smokers.
But as well as puffing in the cubicle, they had also used it as their own personal ashtray and dumped hundreds of stubs in the hollow shower frame.
Stunned Julia says: “This b***h was dumping her cigarettes down this little square here so now we have an unlimited stash of cigarette butts in this thing here.”
The revolting video quickly went viral and racked up over five million views. But some people suggested the water could just be rusty.
The TikToker subsequently shared a follow-up video to answer people’s questions and prove her theory was right.
She and her husband filmed the moment they delicately prised open the shower frame to reveal a mountain of damp cigarette dimps.
In the clip, which earned a staggering 36.6million views, Julia says in awe “oh my god” while her partner adds: “Holy s**t!
“Okay I did [initially] think this was that fungus you guys were talking about when we looked at it last night,” she added.
“But if you look closer, it is 1000% cigarette butts.”
The couple explained the smell had become “way worse” since they disturbed the secret contents of their shower.
Speaking to Yahoo News Australia, Julia said: “It’s really, really stinky.
“We’ve basically wrecked the whole shower — which is a bummer — to get access to the cigarettes, but we didn’t have much choice because it was so disgusting and we were desperate.”
Social media users were in disbelief at the unbelievable cigarette saga and flooded the comment section with their opinions.
One wrote: “I am in actual shock! I can’t imagine how bad the smell is. Who does this? I’m so sorry you have to clean that.”
Another said: “Who on earth was smoking in a bathroom? A teenager?”
A third added: “I knew what that was the second I saw it.”
And a fourth chimed in: “As a smoker, an ashtray left out in the rain smells absolutely foul the next day.
“So I can’t even imagine how bad this is.”
The shower frame had been used by the former renters as a personal ashtray[/caption]