Edward Snowden may be considered a hero by some people and a villain to others after revealing classified information by the NSA, which has left him in exile in Russia as a fugitive. But whether or not you love or hate Edward Snowden, most people do have strong opinions about Jeb Bush and Kanye West.
In case you missed it, the buzz has been about Kanye’s plea for music lovers to subscribe to the music streaming service, Tidal, in which he is a co-owner and stakeholder.
Presidential candidate Jeb Bush inadvertently found himself in the position of being a viral meme after a speech in New Hampshire, where he had to ask his silent audience to “Please Clap.” Snowden found an opportunity to diss both Bush and Kanye with his now viral tweet.
"please clap" https://t.co/iAHUHlN3X1
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) February 15, 2016
Edward Snowden clearly found the recent Twitter rant by Kanye to be overbearing, to say the least, and took the opportunity to shut him down with his two-word tweet. It would appear that the Twitterverse has stood up to clap for Snowden all on their very own without direction.
Snowden may have also been throwing shade on the state of the Tidal itself, which offers the highest percentage of royalties to the artists who share their music. It was launched by a company called Aspiro in 2014. The company was bought out by Jay-Z in 2015, who then relaunched the company and hit the stage at a press conference along with 16 other major artists who were all stakeholders and co-owners of the company.
The first “artist-owned” streaming company was said to allow artists the royalties they deserve, something they were not getting from other major streaming companies. Tidal received a lot of mixed reviews, claiming the exclusivity of the co-owners/artists and the high subscription price would increase the problem of pirating music.
It turns out that Kanye’s new album, The Life of Pablo, was illegally downloaded 500,000 times before being taken down by the next day. Discussions throughout social media have declared Tidal to be a flop.
Kanye’s requests for his followers to subscribe to Tidal were clearly an attempt to stop the piracy that critics so accurately suggested may happen.
Image via: Public Domain
