The #BuyTwitter campaign reminds me of the first time I attended a wedding that resulted in a marriage lasting less than a year. On hearing of the divorce, I laughed when my father asked, “Do you get the wedding present back?”
In this day and age of crowdfunding, I thought I’d seen it all. Then along came Valerie Plame Wilson and her GoFundMe campaign to buy Twitter (NYSE: TWTR). It seems she would like to raise $1 billion to buy a controlling interest in the social media giant and, as owner, ban President Trump from tweeting.
Never mind that it just might be impossible to ban any individual’s First Amendment rights on a still-publicly-held media platform. Is Wilson’s campaign simply a misguided symbolic gesture?
You tell me. As of the publishing of this blog post, Wilson’s nine-day #BuyTwitter effort had raised nearly $68,000 and climbing. Will the donors get their money back if she can’t raise a billion? According to the campaign, if the effort fails to raise enough money to buy a controlling interest in Twitter, then all money collected will benefit Global Zero, a nonprofit that opposes nuclear war.
Much to my father’s chagrin, I never again saw the platter I bought my friends before their short-lived marriage. In hindsight, I could have cut my losses by waiting a year to give them a gift. Or maybe the couple could have donated the value of my platter to a nonprofit that opposes divorce.
I’ve never started a GoFundMe campaign. While I’ve donated to specific efforts to raise money for community members in need, I’d have a hard time starting a public fundraising campaign on social media. That said, I’m toying with the idea of a #BuyStupidity campaign. If we raise enough money, can we raise the public’s IQ and replace stupidity with logic and reasoning? How much would it cost?
