A notable characteristic of the Trump 2.0 administration is its near universal disregard for protocol. The use of US government assets - like the White House social accounts - for partisan political messaging is clearly damaging to the long term credibility of those accounts, damage which will last long after this administration is gone. It's a crazy thing to observe

Isn't the hatch act supposed to prevent this?

I don't think the hatch act is supposed to prevent the use of the White House account for political purposes. It seems like basically every administration with an X account has done this, e.g.: https://x.com/WhiteHouse46/status/1662171756830892032 .

Although there are probably more contentious case with other government agencies.

The Hatch act just makes them more careful about what they say when an election is imminent. It's not a blanket ban on "politics."

That seems like it could have been a headline in a nonpartisan newspaper.

A nonpartisan newspaper could also condemn or blame a political party for an action. But if all of its posts were supportive of one administration, it would no longer be partisan.

You can just look through the old white house accounts. For example this tweet https://x.com/WhiteHouse46/status/1879171105044181097 , "While Congressional Republicans refused to pass a bipartisan border security agreement, President Biden took action and encounters today are the lowest since July 2020."

Looking through the tweets, you'll see it's not nonpartisan and isn't supposed to be.

The Hatch Act was famously almost never enforced.

Couple that with this admin going out of their way to only selectively enforce laws/policies in ways that benefit only them and their desired constituents, and it’s not even worth talking about the Hatch Act until someone else heads the Executive Branch.

Laws depend on having someone who wants to enforce them.

Nobody is going to enforce any laws on Trump or his executive. Either the midterms will allow for oversight to return or he dies before the transition into authoritarianism is complete. With SCOTUS about to end the Voting Rights Act, it could be over sooner than people think.

Unfortunately it’s worse in that the Supreme Court has declared that nothing Trump can do is illegal anymore.

No such thing has occurred.

Do you think a sitting President could ever be charged with a crime (apart from impeachment)?

Wrong.

If it were August-September of 2026 and an election were around the corner, yes. The Hatch act is pretty narrowly tailored if you look at its enforcement history, though.

Due to a lapse in appropriations, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel is closed. Complaints may still be filed, but most will not be addressed until OSC reopens. [0]

They are the "independent" body that enforces Hatch act regulations.

[0]: https://osc.gov

> They are the "independent" body that enforces Hatch act regulations.

Right. And I have this nifty bridge you might be interested in buying.

> for partisan political messaging is clearly damaging to the long term credibility of those accounts, damage which will last long after this administration is gone.

It's a common topic with this admin: short term profits, long term losses. Be it that weird shit with a sell-off of public lands, the closure of and impedance to science in general, the rollback of clean renewable energy sources in favor of fossil fuels, the turn towards corruption and fascism, the fear they're spreading in everyone who's not white, citizenship be damned.

In Germany we have a saying for this - "nach uns die Sintflut" or "after us, the floods may come". Trump, those around him and those profiting off of him are having one last blast at the cost of what is going to be our children, the truly uber rich are already building bunkers and thinking how to keep their guards loyal - everyone clearly knows where this ship is headed.

We have that saying in English, too, except that we quote it in French. "Après moi, le déluge."

I can't think of anything the White House under this administration would post on social media that is simultaneously (1) at least somewhat truthful, (2) concerns something that is of interest to me, and (3) will not be covered by other sources I read or follow.

You seem to think social media should be a marketplace of ideas. I just want to read stuff I like.

Just Dance Vance's shitposting doesn't even qualify as "ideas".

A market place of ideas also means having people sharing their best ideas in good faith, not poop-bombing AI videos.

The deranged antics of the current US administration and its sycophants are beyond echo chambers.

Really enjoyed the following post-skit (that I think is basically the alternative, if you insist people have to see what the corporation wants to push in your face):

  normal person: i just want a place to hang out with my friends
  tech weirdo: and shitheads
  np: no just my friends
  tw: but what about hearing alternative views on race and gender?
  np: we just want to hang out and goof around
  tw: so where do the shitheads fit in then
  np: no shitheads
  tw: not following

Via https://bsky.app/profile/msbarnes.bsky.social/post/3m3beqjja...

Given that this White House is so so so proud of their king shitting on people's heads, the word choice here could not have been better. The White House is perhaps the most needed to block evil people out there, aiming for it, again and again: Miyazaki AI comes out and an old lady in handcuffs crying is what that's for.

These people deserve no voice, no presence in society, except as a warning mark in the history books for what rot abounds from decoupled extremely online vicious edgelording. Which is all too effective and engagement schtick, that doesn't deserve attention.

The thing with the cliche tech-bros is they know barely anyone likes them so they force-feed their slop to everyone in the hope they manage to reach the one village idiot that every village in human history has had.

What the heck are you talking about?

I wouldn't even know the account existed if it weren't for the other people talking about it.

(Generally true on Bluesky.)

This is why blue stalled. Discovery is absolutely crap. And the only thing it wanted to feed me originally was gay, furry and anime content. Probably not a solid intro feed setup.

Lol yeah I thought the discovery feed was fine but I do just want to find furries there.

I'm not on bluesky myself, but is it weird that I am actually a little bit relieved by your description?

Personally, I think it's generally a bad thing when a social space tries to be all things to all people.

Seems lively and active to me.

I saw a lot of mentions of it on X for what that's worth.

I thought that bluesky only showed you posts from people you follow so why go through the effort of blocking someone whose posts you’ll never see?

The default "following" feed only shows who you follow. There are a couple other default feeds like "Discover" and "Popular with Friends" that show other stuff. There also a bunch of feeds made by people that show whatever...

The result is that even if you have extremely good hygiene about who you follow: rage bait will still often make it's way onto your skyline as quote dunks, reskeets or replies. So if there's an account you just don't ever want to see blocking is still the most fullproof way, even then you're still often exposed to screenshots of rage bait.

As a corollary if there are accounts that everybody knows are just going to be trolls, mass blocks help starve them of attention before they get a foot hold.

> reskeets

Gross.

Because blocks are public and thus tend to be a form of expression

People retweet and quote tweet things, and honestly, why would I ever want their brand of toxic garbage in my life? Even if accidentally?

Self defense. They are making significant real world changes that can change your plans if you, you know, interact with the world. Like traveling to another country, or saying things out loud. It's good to be prepared. The pace of those changes is at a historic high in the current administration. There's a sweet spot between being informed and obsessed, but it's sometimes hard to station keep.

If it’s something important I’ll hear it from a news agency, and they can filter out the videos of Trump dumping shit on his own country.

Yep, unfortunately, it's practical to block people who behave like trolls in advance, as people seemingly can't help but repost their annoying content.

it doesn't