• by Ray Schultz , June 15, 2020

Twitter is buzzing over the claim that the Trump campaign is using event registrations to build its email list.

For example, John Marshall refers to a tweet by campaign chairman Brad Parscale that says: “Just passed 800,000 tickets. Biggest data haul and rally signup of all time by 10x.”

Marshall argues: “This is a perfect synopsis of Trumpism: bragging that you’ve given out 40x more tickets than available seats and bragging that it’s all a scam to get people’s email and data.”

And Jake Sherman tweets: “you may wonder why the trump team allows 800k people to register for an event that will seat20k. But, as indicated here, it’s a data play.

Sherman, too, repeats the Parscale tweet.

Reality check: Politics aside, signing people up for events is a legitimate way of building email lists. Democrats do it as well.

There’s no hint that the people who sign up are being hurt (except for possible disappointment that they can’t get in). They are clearly opting in, and have the option of opting out when they choose. 

Meanwhile, Louise Mench posts purported photos of computer screens, saying, “I suppose it’s too much to hope that this is a picture of databases being washed out.”

Mensch adds, “First screen shows Trump’ s scheduled rallies and a barcode is being added, second screen shows a Python database building in the background for micro targeting.”