Reversing a decision to block all news in Australia which was broadly seen as a heavy-handed move and which ended up taking down health and emergency services along with government pages, the technology giant said the government had agreed to change a proposed Media Bargaining Code that would have dictated compensation for linking to news.
In comparison to Facebook’s reaction to Australia’s recent new law, Google struck a deal in which it would provide news publishers with some money for the links Google Search used.
Monopolization of community-based information networks by cartels of a few “super editors” among several risks that could lead to a diminished Wikipedia
Wikipedia’s quality benefits from high levels of free participation, but volunteer information databases like Wikipedia can be negatively effected by tendencies toward information monopolization, and, according to a recent study, this negative effect is more prevalent in more frequently edited articles — articles that could be considered to be more important.
In the study, researchers at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and the Korea Institute for Advanced Study looked at how editors interact with each other as well as how they interact with articles, and integrated previously-ignored factors such as the consideration of real time — not just the number of edits used in previous studies to mark time.
Among the team’s findings: infrequently-referred articles grow faster than frequently-referred ones. Not only that, but articles that attracted a high motivation to edit actually reduced the number of participants. Yun and his colleagues inferred that this type of Wikipedia article participation decay results in inequality among community editors. The trend will become more severe as time goes on, they suspected:
“For the previous decade, many of these open-editing access movements have significantly affected the entire
Jinhyuk Yun
society,” Jinhyuk Yun, a Ph.D. candidate at the Complex Systems and Statistical Physics Lab at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in Daejeon, South Korea, told us.
“Wikipedia, Creative Commons Licenses, GNU, etc. To sustain such movements, they must maintain their motivations for participants, which might be taken away by monopolization.”
Yun explained how communal information databases like Wikipedia slow down.
“There are various reasons to participate in such ‘open-editing’ movements. Some are collective reasons shared in a society, and others are somewhat personal. Because the motivation is diverse, slowing down is also due to various causes. First, there can be a loss of necessity to contribute due to changes in society — or technology. Some GNU software based on old platforms no longer continue because the number of users of such software is getting smaller. In addition, there can be new barriers caused by governmental regulations — not about such communal databases, but considering the case of UBER. One particular candidate we discussed in the paper is the monopolization by few ‘super-editors.'”
Yun also commented on how we can consider the health of such community databases?
“It is very hard to quantify the ‘health’ of such database because of the ambiguity in the definition of health. In my point of view, the databases should meet the standard of accuracy and instantaneity. In other words, it should keep the trend, but it should not lose its accuracy in the contents. Although these databases are mainly based on the contribution of anonymous sources, it should also have reliable references to cross-check.”
However, data monopolization is not a black and white issue, Yun noted.
“To be honest, monopolization sometimes does good in particular occasions,” Yun told us, “yet it has many risks in most cases. Consider political issues in authoritarian governments, where media controlled by the government sometimes manipulates people’s opinions by a simple nudge or filtering. Such manipulation can also happen in Wikipedia — for example, by cartels of super-editors.”
Yun offered some possible remedies for content monopolization on Wikipedia:
“Based on our observations, Wikipedia could consider a reward program to recruit new editors. Simple achievement reward programs — like those in video games — at an early stage might be helpful, yet it should be done under strict supervision to avoid vandals. For instance, giving merit to editors who supply new reliable references might help to keep the quality of articles.”
3D technology comes to the rescue after the destruction of several world cultural treasures by the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
According to the United Nations, ISIS has destroyed and damaged 200 world heritage sites along with hundreds of statues and artefacts since 2014.
ISIS’ plan is simple. It is about erasing all traces of previous cultures to establish their own and take advantage of the media coverage following massing destructions of historic sites to grab the world’s attention. In addition, this cultural cleaning is a way for Daesh to finance their activities by selling to dealers and private collectors.
Yet those lost treasures that some call “blood artifacts” may not be lost forever.
Through her digital fabrication and 3D printing project “Material Speculation : ISIS”, Iranian artist and activist Morehshin Allahyari chose to focus on the reconstruction of selected artifacts and statues destroyed by ISIS in Iraq in 2015.
In addition, to repair history and memory, each 3D printed object comprises a flash drive and a memory card. The data in these flash drives contain materials: maps, images, videos and pdf files on the destroyed artifacts and sites. They were gathered thanks to a collaboration with different archeologists and historians, including and museum staff.
“Like time capsules, each object is sealed and kept for future civilizations.”
– Morehshin Allahyari
Just like Murehshin Allahyari artifacts, Palmyra has suffered numerous act of vandalism. The Syrian desert city known as the Venice of the Sands lost the triumphal arch from 2,000-year-old Temple of Bel.
Devastated, many archaeologists talked restoration and reconstruction such as American lawyer/archaeologist Roger Michel. Indeed, as the founder of Oxford’s Institute for Digital Archaeology, Michel has built a 3D facsimile arch from Palmyra’s destroyed Temple of Bel.
Thanks to 3D technology, Pamlyra’s rose again in London’s Trafalgar Square last April to coincide with world heritage week. It should then travel on to Times Square in New York City.
London, Trafalgar Square
This 3D replica of the 15-meters arch that formed the temple’s entrance is a gesture of defiance against ISIS’ desire to erase cultural and historical evidence.
“My intention is to show Islamic State that anything they can blow up we can rebuild exactly as it was before, and rebuild it again and again. We will use technology to disempower ISIS.” Roger Michel
Moving for some or uncanny for others, this incredible public display of 3D reconstruction is the proof that new technology can restore entire parts of 20th-century historical sites. Although out of their original context and site, 3D monuments or artefacts might still conserve their precious sense of place and craftsmanship, thus preserving everybody’s heritage.
Cross Canada charity runner Fast Eddy has made it to the East Coast — he ran from Vancouver Island to Cape Spear, Newfoundland, the most eastern point in North America, and is now on his way back to the West Coast.
The ultramarathoner started out in Victoria, British Columbia last March. He calls the journey his “There and Back Run” — and it has two charity causes, Alzheimer’s and Breast Cancer,” two medical conditions close to Fast Eddy.
Alzheimer’s is something Fast Eddy’s grandmother deals with. She helped raise the runner and gave him his nickname. Fast Eddy’s birth name is Edward Dostaler. Breast cancer was a cause undertaken by Fast Eddy’s former professor, Tom Owen, who taught at Thompson Rivers University before his death from lung cancer.
The run has already amounted to 10,000 kilometers one way. The way back will be twice as long.
“Now I’m basically running across Canada again but twice in one go,” Fast Eddy told us.
In order to fit speaking engagements into the trip, Fast Eddy is running a leg, running back, and driving back again to his furthest point.
Fast Eddy’s breakdown of the legs of his return trip
“It allows me to go to schools and do presentations and put the causes first,” Fast Eddy said. Also, he is his own driver, so it is a practical method of juggling the tasks of running and driving the gear necessary for the trip.
Not only is Fast Eddy raising money for charity, but he’s also speaking to students in Canada’s school on such topics as saying “no” to bullying, believing in yourself, and persevering. The issues are ones personal to Fast Eddy, like the causes he is fundraising for. Bullying was something the activist faced in school — moving three times with his family because of it — and persevering is something he says he deals with every day.
Fast Eddy (left) with friends in Gander, N.L., December 12
“Every morning you have to get up and face the mental challenge of your day,” he tells the kids he speaks to. “The brain has to say, ‘Nope, we’re going to get up and get going.’ Don’t quit, just keep on moving.”
Interesting “There and Back” Facts
– It takes 4,500 calories per day to fuel the body running as much as Fast Eddy runs
– It will take 28 pairs of shoes to make the complete “There and Back” journey (a pair of runners lasts approximately 700 kilometers)
– The cost will be around $25,000
– The total length of the trip will be 21,585 kilometers
Wikipedia creator Jimmy Wales is creating Wikitribune, a news version of Wikipedia where he hopes news will be more fact-based than what he sees elsewhere.
He will be hiring many journalists for the initial phase, and see how things develop from there.
Wikitribune will not focus on doing original journalism. It will use the same community model as Wikipedia to put together long-form contextual articles for news events, as well as finding related questions that can be filled in by people at home.
Regarding whether the venture would succeed, Wales stated, “[O]ne of my main questions is the question of scale – I think if we can get to scale, it will be successful. If we aren’t able to produce enough good work early on to persuade people to contribute further support, I think that means that potentially we are going to struggle to get traction. But the response so far to the announcement has been so positive that I’m feeling ok.”
It’s become journalistic shorthand to describe Iceland’s impact at Euro 2016 as ‘volcanic’, but the team’s success in France is down to the close bond that exists in in the squad, and the harmony between the players and the fans.
60 year-old Italian composer and pianist Ludovico Einaudi performed his composition “Elegy for the Arctic” last Friday in the Svalbard islands in Norway facing sub-zero temperatures.
A grand piano standing majestically in the middle of melting icebergs is surely not a common sight. Yet, it is not only for the pleasure of the eye or the ear that Greenpeace ice breaking vessel Arctic Sunrisebrought the musician against the backdrop of the Walhlenbergbreen glacier.
This unique performance on a platform floating on the Arctic Ocean was part of a campaign to protect the Arctic environment and send a conservation message to world leaders.
“Being here has been a great experience. I could see the purity and fragility of this area with my own eyes. It is important that we understand the importance of the Arctic, stop the process of destruction and protect it.” Einaudi said in a statement.
The video was released on Tuesday to mark the start of the four-day meeting of the OSPAR Commission in Tenerife, Spain. OSPAR consists of 15 governments of the EU seeking to protect the marine environment of the North-East Atlantic.
According to Greenpeace, the Arctic is warming faster than any other place in the world with a continuing loss of sea ice volume.
As we watch this haunting performance accompanied by eerie sounds due to icebergs movements slowly melting with ice chunks crumbling and falling in the Ocean, let us not forget that we are witnessing the spectacular yet dramatic effects of rising temperatures.
The Greenpeace petition to protect the Arctic sea is online here.
“Until they change their view, those who would risk the Arctic should not be heard over those calling to protect what we love, not over Ludovico’s music, not over the piano and the glacier, not over eight million voices.”
A week ago, I received the rather unexpected Canada Census slip in the mail, with the all-too-well known, yet still alarming text of “Complete the census – it’s the law,” plastered over the eerie yellow paper. I paid no heed to its intimidating form. I threw it on my desk and placed it outside of my mind until the news feed was overflowing with articles commending the entire nation’s’ apparent enthusiasm with completing it. The form which aims to collect personal information from all households, and the one which promises that if not completed it could lead to a $500 fine or even up to three-months imprisonment.
The imperceptible feeling that I must comply to share is that I am not quite sure what is more terrifying, the actual penalties for not completing the census, or the overzealous joy of complying with the state – the being, and entity which of course necessitates trust, especially in a liberal country such as ours, but surely not with such enthusiasm. I am not sure whether the institutionalization of the collection of data itself seems like a viable bureaucratic necessity. Nor whether, it has led to the normalization of mass compliance, by so many of my co-patriots.
Whether it is both a symbiotic relationship between the submissive masses, or the ever-growing power of the state. Or whether power is exercised from one side towards the other. The answer to these questions necessitate perhaps an entire treatise. The fact remains, that although this doesn’t mean that totalitarianism is just around the corner, it certainly seems to be an aspect of it. Something which is entertained with the utmost eagerness, by what seems to be most facets of Canada – including most forms of media on most of the political spectrum.
The census has been part of Canada since 1871, a few years after Confederation which sought to try and discern the ever present cultural and ethnic mosaic that has made up this nation, as well as the numerous Indigenous nations within it. In 1912, interestingly, the first federal organization was set up – the Dominion Bureau of Statistics – which employed its power to try and find out the makeup of Canada from “mare ad mare.” It was in the post-war years however, coupled with the relative prosperity, that the census became a truly Canadian “tradition” per se. The last census conducted was in 2011.
Yet there is hope, at least an act of symbolic yet also salient rebellion, when some such as Janet Churnin refused to complete the mandatory census and was taken to court for it. She was found guilty with violating Statistics Canada, but showed no remorse. It is such incidences which at times relay some hope. Although she was slapped with a sentence of 50 hours of community service, at the age of 79, she expressed that she was happy “to make a point.” Therein lies the individuality of a person, remained intact, unmoved by the ever-expanding power of the state.
The question that has been hovering in my thoughts however is whether the apparent eagerness of Canadians to complete the census was the result of fear of facing the penalties? Was it perhaps the enthusiasm of aiding future historians that will look at the data we put in the system, and make large claims, perhaps even sweeping generalizations based on some numbers?
Perhaps, there is something scarier than those two options- perhaps it is the ardor to give away information, found interminably in their joy of subservience, in the joy of becoming one with the fold- the utter collectivism of anonymity. Of placing one’s voice in a chorus of sheer imperceptibility- and thus the deviation of individuality. Ultimately what I mean is the happiness that comes with utter subservience, and Foucaultian “docility” that is welcomed. One’s proselytization to the group, yielding to the national form, and thus happily giving into a Kafkaesque reality which most secretly love to be a part of. I assume.
You may think this sounds dramatic – especially over something as simple as a census. Yet I ask, humbly, why must the state impose a penalty if one fails to complete it? Why is that not the detail which causes worry in the hearts of people, who wish to live in a free country, based on liberal ideals? The argument that this is for the ‘common good’ of the nation, has been long exhausted – used so many times before by totalitarian states.
It is not that I am arguing against the importance of the census, for I know it’s dire need – perhaps even in the long-form. But a choice must be given to complete it out of one’s free will. Anything but is antithetical.
The question that needs to be asked: Is totalitarianism inching ever-closer to us, or are we gladly slowly taking steps towards its shadow? Is it democratic for the state to demand information from the citizens of a country?
I have learned not to blow Eurovision out of all proportion. However the victory which was gained by Susana Jamaladynova – by her stage name Jamala – is beyond getting the first place in a competition or singing a song in mother language in European stage.
I could not sleep the night I heard what happened in 18th of May, 1944 from my wife Elvina – who was not my wife that time yet – whose grandparents suffered from the same thing. Although I had never seen or heard, I could not help hearing the voices or seeing the faces of Crimean Tatars who had been fiercely exiled from their homeland in one night.
Realizing my unawareness of a massive murder which was committed against my cognates right beside me – on the North coast of Black Sea which is just across my hometown Samsun – was as devastating as learning the sufferings.
Now, thanks to Jamala’s marvelous song and victory, a great number of people will learn about Crimean Tatar Exile in 1944.
Those who will hear Jamala’s scream at the end of the song will also hear the tearful screams of Crimean Tatar kids, ladies and elderlies who were savagely plucked off from their homeland while their brothers , fathers , husbands were fighting for Soviets whose commander – Stalin – was the person who signed the order of this massacre.
Jamala’s victory has not only made all Crimean Tatars proud but also has given them chance to be heard of. Just like Cengiz Dağcı, the most famous writer of their history thanks to whose novels millions of people have heard about Crimea and Crimean Tatars.
The dark history behind the song makes it a powerful message for everyone regardless of any nationality:
Music and words are much more powerful and long lasting than brutality. Goodness will always win no matter how strong the latter is.
Facebook this week published a blog post in its newsroom in response to recent accusations that the social network promotes liberal news while downplaying conservative, explaining how it picks posts for its “Trending Topics” section, a decision-making process which depends on people and machines at different stages.
Facebook’s VP of Global Operations Justin Osofsky wrote the blog post Thursday in which he explained that in Facebook’s ambition to connect people around major news events and let them together discuss ideas freely, the Trending Topics team reviews themes identified as potentially trending by the website’s algorithms, which measure Facebook user engagement. They confirm the topic is current news, find corroborating news stories, apply a label to the topic, and check if the story is getting attention from a lot of news outlets nationally and/or globally.
Osofsky further explained that because Facebook’s programs deliver posts based on what a user has demonstrated interest in, users will see different Trending Topics.
Once a user clicks to see more about a Trending Topic, however, they are seeing an organization of posts within that topic which are arranged algorithmically — the ones at the top are those that have seem to have the most social engagement because the most people have liked, shared or commented on them.
Justin Osofsky
As far as measures Facebook takes to prevent the type of political bias that was part of the recent accusations, Osofsky wrote that it “does not allow or advise our reviewers to discriminate against sources of any political origin, period,” and that, of course, the algorithm that “surfaces” potentially trending topics has no such bias.
Facebook’s review guidelines include not permitting “the suppression of political perspectives” or “the prioritization of one ideological viewpoint over another,” and that the company regularly reviews the work of the review team members.
In a specific response to the recent allegations, Osofsky wrote, “We take these reports very seriously, and will continue to investigate the allegations. We have found no evidence to date that Trending Topics was successfully manipulated, but will continue the review of all our practices.”
Easter Monday in Ireland will mark the centenary of a failed rebellion against British rule in Ireland, while April will see the anniversary of the birth of the great Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Two events that, at least for me, are connected and both are essential facets of how I see myself and my country. Though Oscar Wilde meant it as a slight, sometimes my passions are a quotation. Other times, a passport.
During the Rising, key buildings were taken over by Irish nationalists and bullets rained down on Dublin streets. The leaders and signatories of the 1916 Proclamation – people (and writers) such as Patrick Pearse and James Connolly – were captured and shot by the British government after the failure of the insurrection.
It was an uprising that occurred during a World War, an armed stand-off watched from afar by Lenin in Moscow, it was more than just a local affair. Indeed, Indian doctors studying medicine in Dublin joined the resistance, as did many Jews who had immigrated into Ireland throughout the 19th Century. All told, Irish nationalism – as it usually does – enjoyed an internationalist dimension, a sentiment chorused in our national anthem Amhrn na bhFiann, and underlined by the outward looking human rights advocacy of the State from the 1960s onwards.
The Poets
Though this is not an account of the 1916 Rising per se. Exiled as I am by the failure of the Celtic Tiger and my own wanderlust, this significant memory in the collective Irish soul gives pause for reflection on my sense of Irishness and how it is wrapped up in Seamus Heaney and a Chilean – Pablo Neruda. I do, of course, identify with the men and women who gave their lives for a free Ireland, but this a more personal account of what Ireland respresents to me – an Irish nationalist safe from British guns and a writer who, hitherto, has not been recognized with a Nobel Prize for Literature.
I grew up on Heaney and Neruda. I also grew up on Capri-Suns and Batman, but that is a reminiscence for another day. The two men were quite political in their writings, the former lamenting the ravages of Troubles in Northern Ireland, and the latter forlorn over the destruction of the Spanish Civil War and the legacy of empires. They both shared a need to preserve ordinary people an ordinary objects. Heaney celebrates his mother and ‘her white nails… raising scones against two ticking clocks’ and another poem speaks of the wallets and keys strewn across the road, exploded from the pockets of the recently blown up by the bombs of paramilitary forces. Neruda, for his part, catalogued plants and rocks, mountains, books, and food until he fell in exhaustion into his poem Too Many Names, a poem where ‘time lost its shoes’ and the poet breaks the fourth wall and obliterates his structure. Think the Coen Brothers and Barton Fink, but less playfully and more with a whine.
Right now, aside from watching the official commemoration of 1916 from afar, I am reading – and listening – to Heaney and his epic translation of Beowulf. The New York Times called it a better Beowulf and went on to tease out the irony of man with a dislike of the dominance the English language had over the Gaelic tongue translating one of the defining texts in Anglo-Saxon culture. You can read the superb analysis of the translation here.
It is a work that links me again to the words of Neruda, particularly his work And How Long? Both texts focus on atempts to give life to things – ideas, nature, nations. If Beowulf dies, and if Neruda tires, what are we to do? If the Irish State is turning a 100 soon, where do we go? Time is the knife that cuts all our imagined and realised hopes into successes, failures, and missed opportunities.
Dublin on the night Ireland becomes a Republic
In general, they shared more things. The equality proclaimed by 1916 extended to how these poets wanted their poems to be transmitted and to the audience they hoped to reach. While Heaney called Eminem a modern poet and showed himself adaptable to the evolution of the artistic use of language, Neruda busied himself with writing poems that could be recited out loud and to everybody. No child of poetry would be left behind.
The role of nature ran through the different periods of Neruda, from the ‘tomatoes, stars of the earth’ of Ode to the Tomato finding roots in Heaney and his Death of a Naturalist, where little children observed frogs to see the weather ‘yellow in the sun, brown in the rain’.
Reflections
A recent opinion piece in TheIrish Times was titled – Our independence sprang from more than violence alone, and it is true. We had a democractic mandate from the people, an organized government staffed with brilliant men and women, and a cultural breath that gave life to the nascent organs of the emerging State. There was also an internationalism that bridged the geographical synapses of different peoples and nations that shared a common sense of how a nation should be organized and how the people within should be protected, an internationalism that has defined Ireland throughout its history.
In this Easter weekend and centenary of 1916, I doff my cap to two men so connected to my sense of self, to my Ireland. To Neruda, the poet hailed by the people as their voice, and Heaney, ‘whose passport green… never toasted the British Queen’ – two men who turned their back on imperialism and their souls and pens toward a common humanity. A common humanity hoped for by 1916, with the promise of universal sufferage and equal rights. We come full circle, like all the arcs of all the poets that reach in themselves and find the world.
Requiem for the Croppies by Seamus Heaney
The pockets of our greatcoats full of barley…
No kitchens on the run, no striking camp…
We moved quick and sudden in our own country.
The priest lay behind ditches with the tramp.
A people hardly marching… on the hike…
We found new tactics happening each day:
We’d cut through reins and rider with the pike
And stampede cattle into infantry,
Then retreat through hedges where cavalry must be thrown.
Until… on Vinegar Hill… the final conclave.
Terraced thousands died, shaking scythes at cannon.
The hillside blushed, soaked in our broken wave.
They buried us without shroud or coffin
And in August… the barley grew up out of our grave.
“Our main story tonight – and I cannot believe I am saying this – is Donald Trump.” Those were the introductory words of Sunday evening Last Week Tonight host John Oliver. On last Sunday’s segment, John Oliver decided that it was time to take on billionaire Republican candidate Donald Trump.
As Oliver pointed out, the show mostly tried to ignore Donald Trump until then. Yet as Trump has now won three states and recently received an endorsement from Chris Christie with polls that show him leading most Super Tuesday states, things are getting more serious than expected.
“At this point, Donald Trump is America’s back mole: it may have seemed harmless a year ago, but now that it’s gotten frighteningly bigger, it is no longer wise to ignore it,” said Oliver.
After running clips of Trump’s supporters describing their favourite candidate as an “independent” and “tough” man who “tells it like it is”, Oliver claims to understand why Trump’s supporters seem to like him so much through his polished image of an entertaining, truthful and successful candidate.
He decides to take a closer look at those qualities, starting with Trump’s said honesty. First noting that “PolitiFact checked 77 of his statements and rated 76 percent of them as varying degrees of false”, Oliver then specifically underlined a false statement made by Trump who claimed to have turned down an invitation to appear on Last Week Tonight “four or five times.”
“It was genuinely destabilizing to be on the receiving end of a lie that confident,” said Oliver. “I’m not even sure he knows he is lying, I think he just doesn’t care about what the truth is.”
He continued to dismantle Trump’s seeming qualities by calling into question the claim he made to Fox News that he was “self-funded” and contributed around twenty-five million dollars to his own presidential campaign.
“While it is true that he hasn’t taken corporate money, the implication that he has personally spent $20-25 million is a bit of a stretch, because what he’s actually done is loaned his own campaign $17.5 million, and has personally given just $250,000,” said Oliver before adding: “And that’s important because up until the convention, he can pay himself back for the loan with campaign funds.”
Oliver then tackles Trump’s biggest selling point – his business success and wealth. He admits that Trump is indeed very wealthy but “not only received a multi-million dollar inheritance from his father, but he’s also lost a huge amount.”
While keeping in mind Trump’s own words that says: “If I put my name on something, you know it’s gonna be good”, Oliver brings attention to Trump’s past business failures: “His name has been on some things that have arguably been very un-good, including Trump Shuttle, which no longer exists; Trump Vodka, which was discontinued; Trump Magazine, which folded; Trump World Magazine, which also folded; Trump University, over which he’s being sued; and of course, the travel-booking site GoTrump.com.”
He also points out Trump’s lack of financial instinct back in April 2006 – just before the entire housing market collapsed – when Trump told a CNBC interviewer :”I think it’s a great time to start a mortgage company” adding that “the real estate market is going to be very strong for a long time to come.”
He goes on to note Trump’s many political inconsistencies. After questioning Trump’s silence about former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard David Duke’s support for his campaign, Oliver reminds his audience of his particularly troubling declaration on killing the family members of terrorists to defeat ISIS, a rather worrying image of “the frontrunner for the Republican nomination advocating a war crime,” said Olivier.
According to Oliver, Trump may appear invincible and almost magical since he “has spent decades turning his own name into a brand synonymous with success and quality, and he’s made himself the mascot for that brand.” The mascot is supposed to symbolize wealth, power and success, but “it’s time to stop thinking of the mascot and start thinking of the man,” said Oliver.
He therefore concludes that people seem to automatically associate the name – or brand – “Trump” with wealth and success, hence the urgent need to separate the word from the man. In fact, it turns out that the name “Trump” is an alteration of what was once “Drumpf”, which is rather ironic considering Trump’s tweet mocking Jon Stewart’s Jewish family for having changed their name.
“Fucking Drumpf!” Oliver exclaimed. “Drumpf is much less magical.” Referring to Trump’s tweet on Jon Stewart’s name, Oliver added: “He should be proud of his heritage!”
Oliver thus asks his audience and America to make Donald Drumpf again to break the spell of his brand name. He announces the launch of the website http://donaldjdrumpf.com/ where people can purchase some #MakeDonaldDrumpfAgain hats and download a Drumpfinator Chrome extension that will replace ‘Trump’ with ‘Drumpf’ wherever it appears in their browser.
“If you are thinking of voting for Donald Trump, the charismatic guy promising to ‘Make America Great Again,’ stop and take a moment to imagine how you would feel if you just met a guy named Donald Drumpf: a litigious, serial liar with a string of broken business ventures and the support of a former Klan leader who he can’t decide whether or not to condemn,” said Oliver. “Would you think he would make a good president, or is the spell now somewhat broken?”
