• by Fern Siegel , November 2, 2020

Rolling Stone and Yappa World have partnered for a virtual live event series — Useful Idiots Live — utilizing the magazine’s political podcast with editor Matt Taibbi and comedian Katie Halper.

The series kicks off tonight, Nov. 2 at 3 p.m. (ET). The duo is joined by singer-songwriter Tinashe at launch.

Listeners can participate by registering and leaving audio and video yaps about the presidential election and its impact at  usefulidiotslive.com.

“It’s never been more important for people to use the power of their voice, and comments sections on websites are continually being taken down because they are riddled with hate speech, spam and trolls,” stated Jennifer Dyer, CEO of Yappa World Inc. The company will provide a “safe and dynamic commenting solution for the iconic Rolling Stone to enable safe and lively discussions right on their own platform.”

Gus Wenner, President-COO of Rolling Stone, added: "The impact of this election on our country is going to create serious conversation, and we're looking forward to bringing in some of today's most influential stars to unfold what's to come."

Yappa’s commenting tool will also be installed on select Rolling Stone music lists throughout the next several months to jump-start discuss among the magazine's readership.

Separately, on the political-site front, The Drudge Report’s traffic fell 45% year-over-year in September, according to Comscore data.

The conservative news aggregator has been dropping since March. It's often mocked by Donald Trump, when its homepage doesn’t tout him sufficiently. Conversely, Bongino.com, a right-wing, pro-Trump site launched by Fox News contributor Dan Bongino, has seen a noted rise.

Data from The Righting found Bognino.com had nearly 2.6 million unique visitors in September, a big boost from 295,000 a year earlier. The site was founded to compete with Drudge.