Catturd

Last updated

Catturd
Born
Phillip Buchanan

(1964-09-18) September 18, 1964 (age 59)
Movement Right-wing politics
Spouses
​
​
(m. 1986;ann. 1988)​
​
​
(div. 1991)​
​
​
(div. 2002)​

Catturd (born September 18, 1964) is the online identity of right-wing [1] [2] [3] [4] American Twitter shitposter and Internet troll Phillip Buchanan. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] The account is known for its scatological humor, as well as spreading conspiracy theories and disinformation. [10] [11] Buchanan lives in Wewahitchka, Florida, on a "ranch in the middle of nowhere". [6] [12] [13]

Contents

Personal life

Buchanan was born on September 18, 1964. [14] He is thrice-divorced. He married his first wife, whom he met at a gym when she was 19 and he was in his early twenties, in September 1986. The marriage was annulled in 1988. By 1991, Buchanan had married and divorced another woman. His third marriage happened a few years later, while he was working at a post office. They parted in 1998 and divorced in 2002. [12]

Buchanan claims to have served in the US Army. In the 1990s, he filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, and later fronted a band in Tallahassee, Florida. [12]

Online activity

In the 2010s, Buchanan began posting on Disqus under stories from websites such as Breitbart News. [12] [ dubious – discuss ] The Twitter handle @catturd had been taken in 2010, and denied from being the poster of the suspended account @CATTURD1. @catturd2 was created in September 2018, receiving retweets from Jack Posobiec. Over a year later, his account had over 100,000 followers, and half a million by the end of 2020. Donald Trump retweeted Catturd seven times. [12] Media Matters for America accused Buchanan of violating Twitter's platform manipulation policy, attempting to boost hashtags into the trending topics list. [3]

When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, Buchanan was enthusiastic about the purchase, and the two had previously replied to each other on the platform. [15] [16] Buchanan praised Musk for plans to scale back Twitter's content moderation, [17] but claimed his account remained shadowbanned even after the purchase. Musk reached out personally to provide support. [18] [19] Later on, Buchanan tweeted that he was "100% wrong about [Elon Musk] changing Twitter." [20] [21] [22] In March 2023, leaked internal documents from Twitter revealed that Catturd was among a handful of accounts having their reach artificially inflated by Twitter under Musk. [23] [24]

The same month, Buchanan conducted a Twitter poll of a hypothetical 2024 Republican presidential primary between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, showing Trump winning 69%. This poll was presented by Trump at a rally and by Trump-affiliated super PAC MAGA Inc. on Twitter. [10]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> Businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$190 billion as of March 2024, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $195 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.

Vox populi is a Latin phrase that literally means "voice of the people". It is used in English in the meaning "the opinion of the majority of the people". In journalism, vox pop or man on the street refers to short interviews with members of the public.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">QAnon</span> American conspiracy theory and political movement

QAnon is a far-right American political conspiracy theory and political movement which originated in 2017. QAnon centers on fabricated claims made by an anonymous individual or individuals known as "Q". Those claims have been relayed and developed by online communities and influencers. Their core belief is that a cabal of Satanic, cannibalistic child molesters are operating a global child sex trafficking ring which conspired against Donald Trump. QAnon has direct roots in Pizzagate, an Internet conspiracy theory that appeared one year earlier, but also incorporates elements of many other theories. QAnon has been described as a cult.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Gensler</span> American banker (born 1957)

Gary Gensler is an American government official and former Goldman Sachs investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twitter</span> American social networking service

X, commonly referred to by its former name Twitter, is a social media website based in the United States. With over 500 million users, it is one of the world's largest social networks and the fifth-most visited website in the world. Users can share text messages, images, and videos as "tweets". X (Twitter) also includes direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists and communities, and Spaces, a social audio feature. Users can vote on context added by approved users using the Community Notes feature.

Censorship of Twitter, refers to Internet censorship by governments that block access to Twitter. Twitter censorship also includes governmental notice and take down requests to Twitter, which it enforces in accordance with its Terms of Service when a government or authority submits a valid removal request to Twitter indicating that specific content is illegal in their jurisdiction.

Shadow banning, also called stealth banning, hellbanning, ghost banning, and comment ghosting, is the practice of blocking or partially blocking a user or the user's content from some areas of an online community in such a way that the ban is not readily apparent to the user, regardless of whether the action is taken by an individual or an algorithm. For example, shadow-banned comments posted to a blog or media website would be visible to the sender, but not to other users accessing the site.

<i>The Babylon Bee</i> Satirical website

The Babylon Bee is a conservative Christian news satire website that publishes satirical articles on topics including religion, politics, current events, and public figures. It has been referred to as a Christian or conservative version of The Onion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media use by Donald Trump</span>

Donald Trump's use of social media attracted attention worldwide since he joined Twitter in May 2009. Over nearly twelve years, Trump tweeted around 57,000 times, including about 8,000 times during the 2016 election campaign and over 25,000 times during his presidency. The White House said the tweets should be considered official statements. When Twitter banned Trump from the platform in January 2021 during the final days of his term, his handle @realDonaldTrump had over 88.9 million followers. On November 19, 2022, Twitter's new owner, Elon Musk, reinstated his account, although Trump has stated he will not use it in favor of his own social media platform, Truth Social. The first tweet since 2021 was made in August 2023 about his mugshot from Fulton County Jail, but the account has since remained inactive.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Loomer</span> American far-right activist (born 1993)

Laura Elizabeth Loomer is an American far-right and anti-Muslim conservative political activist, white nationalist, conspiracy theorist and internet personality. She was the Republican nominee to represent Florida's 21st congressional district in the 2020 United States House of Representatives elections, losing to Democrat Lois Frankel. She also ran in the Republican primary for Florida's 11th congressional district in 2022, narrowly losing to incumbent Daniel Webster.

Twitter may suspend accounts, temporarily or permanently, from their social networking service. Suspensions of high-profile accounts often attract media attention, and Twitter's use of suspensions has been controversial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vijaya Gadde</span> American business executive (born 1974)

Vijaya Gadde is an American attorney, who served as general counsel and the head of legal, policy, and trust at Twitter. Her role included handling issues such as harassment, misinformation, and harmful speech, and other decisions made by Twitter. On October 27, 2022, she was fired by Elon Musk, following his acquisition of Twitter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taylor Lorenz</span> American technology reporter

Taylor Lorenz is an American journalist. She is a columnist for The Washington Post. She was previously a technology reporter for The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and Business Insider, and social media editor for the Daily Mail. She is particularly known for covering Internet culture.

Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.

Truth Social is an alt-tech social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), an American media and technology company founded in October 2021 by former US president Donald Trump. It has been called a "Twitter clone" that competes with Parler, Gab, and Mastodon in trying to provide an alternative to Twitter and Facebook. Truth Social uses Mastodon as its backend.

Business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 27, 2022. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech.

Angelo Carusone is an American author and media advocate. He is the president of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media watchdog. Carusone has also led political and progressive initiatives such as Dump Trump and StopBeck campaigns.

The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.

Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022; Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until June 2023 when he was succeeded by Linda Yaccarino. Twitter was then rebranded to X in July 2023. Initially during Musk's tenure, Twitter introduced a series of reforms and management changes; the company reinstated a number of previously banned accounts, reduced the workforce by approximately 80%, closed one of Twitter's three data centers, and largely eliminated the content moderation team, replacing it with the crowd-sourced fact-checking system Community Notes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bot Sentinel</span> Twitter analytics service

Bot Sentinel is a Twitter analytics service founded in 2018 by Christopher Bouzy. It tracks disinformation, inauthentic behavior and targeted harassment on Twitter.

References

  1. ↑ Gilbert, David (August 10, 2022). "Trump Is Peddling a Conspiracy the FBI Planted Evidence at Mar-a-Lago". Vice . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  2. ↑ Joshi, Ketan (January 18, 2023). "The Dawn of Gas Stove Denialism". The New Republic . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  3. 1 2 Li, E. Rosalie (December 10, 2021). "Twitter has allowed one user to manipulate the platform by coordinating over 40 hashtags, seemingly in violation of policy". Media Matters . Research contributions from Alex Kaplan. Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  4. ↑ Tabahriti, Sam (October 30, 2022). "Joe Rogan praises Elon Musk for wanting to bring a 'reasonable exchange of ideas' back to Twitter". Business Insider . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Here are the right-wing figures who demanded Elon Musk reinstate a Twitter conspiracy theorist who posted child sexual abuse imagery". Media Matters for America. 28 July 2023. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  6. 1 2 Goforth, Claire (25 July 2023). "Twitter icon Catturd, a Trump favorite, revealed". The Daily Dot. Retrieved 20 October 2023.
  7. ↑ Gilbert, David (February 27, 2023). "The Far Right Wants You to Think Ukraine's War Is Staged: 'It Is Clearly a Psyop'". Vice . Archived from the original on March 27, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  8. ↑ Gilbert, David (March 27, 2023). "QAnon Spent the Weekend Spreading a John Fetterman Body Double Conspiracy Theory". Vice . Archived from the original on March 27, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  9. ↑ Klee, Miles (November 14, 2022). "Elon Musk Keeps Taking Twitter Advice From Right-Wing Trolls". Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on February 11, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  10. 1 2 Sheth, Sonam (March 28, 2023). "Trump touts Twitter poll from '@catturd2' showing him with a big lead over Ron DeSantis". Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  11. ↑ Thakker, Prem (May 12, 2023). "Elon Musk Is the Only One Happy About New Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino". The New Republic . ISSN   0028-6583 . Retrieved May 23, 2023.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 Klee, Miles (February 9, 2023). "Who Is @Catturd2, the Sh-tposting King of MAGA Twitter?". Rolling Stone . Archived from the original on February 16, 2023. Retrieved February 17, 2023.
  13. ↑ "Electronic Articles of Organization For CATTURD, LLC". Florida Division of Corporations. Retrieved 17 November 2023.
  14. ↑ catturd tweeted that in 1969, he was 5 years old, and in a separate tweet on September 18, 2022, requested a birthday hashtag trend.
  15. ↑ Hounshell, Blake (November 4, 2022). "What Twitter's Shake-Up Could Mean: Midterm Misinformation Run Amok". The New York Times . ISSN   0362-4331. Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  16. ↑ Hoard, Charis; McCabe, Audrey; Seavey, Ruby (December 15, 2022). "Elon Musk continues to cater to far-right Twitter accounts promoting bigotry, extremism, and misinformation". Media Matters . Research contributed by Carly Evans and Kayla Gogarty. Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  17. ↑ Griffing, Alex (March 30, 2023). "Elon Musk Confidant 'Catturd' Turns on Twitter Boss". Mediaite . Retrieved April 22, 2023.
  18. ↑ Binder, Matt (October 28, 2022). "'Chief Twit' Elon Musk's first act: Personal customer support for right-wing trolls". Mashable . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  19. ↑ Tiffany, Kaitlyn (January 17, 2023). "Elon Musk Can't Solve Twitter's 'Shadowbanning' Problem". The Atlantic . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  20. ↑ Baragona, Justin (November 2, 2022). "Sorry, Elon! Catturd Turns on Musk, Admits to Being '100% Wrong' About Him". The Daily Beast . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  21. ↑ Binder, Matt (November 2, 2022). "Elon Musk has owned Twitter for less than a week. Conservatives are already canceling him". Mashable . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  22. ↑ Massie, Graeme (November 4, 2022). "'Catturd' Twitter account highlighted by Elon Musk turns on Tesla billionaire". The Independent . Archived from the original on February 18, 2023. Retrieved February 18, 2023.
  23. ↑ Bharade, Aditi (March 28, 2023). "Twitter is secretly boosting 35 VIP users including Lebron James, AOC, catturd2, and Ben Shapiro: report". Business Insider. Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
  24. ↑ Madarang, Charisma (March 28, 2023). "Twitter's Secret VIP List Is Getting Preferential Treatment: Report". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on March 28, 2023. Retrieved March 28, 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.