Issie Lapowsky

The October 9 debate attracted 63 million TV viewers, a 20 percent decline from the first. But on YouTube, debate content—including all videos related to the debate—garnered 124 million views, a 40 percent spike compared with the first. And that’s just on YouTube. Another 3.2 million tuned into Twitter’s livestream, and Facebook’s Live broadcast partnership with ABC News now has 7.4 million views.

Blame it on football season, blame it on the cord cutters, blame it on the gutter-level mudslinging driving some traditional viewers away, or blame it on humans’ technologically enabled short attention spans, but it seems Americans are increasingly interested in watching the debate in bite-sized portions, rather than sitting through the long slog. According to YouTube, viewers tuned into its livestream for an average of 25 minutes. Altogether, though, they watched 2.5 million hours of the livestream. That’s still smaller than the total TV hours watched, but it’s nearly six times more views than YouTube received in 2012. Of course, it can be a little tougher for campaigns to parse these online numbers to figure out whether likely voters actually tuned in.

A list of speakers for the Republican National Convention in Cleveland (OH) includes Peter Thiel, the litigious Silicon Valley billionaire investor, Facebook board member, and Donald Trump delegate, who, most recently, funded a revenge lawsuit against Gawker that forced the media company into bankruptcy. In a statement, Thiel explained why he wants to appear at the convention, an obligation even top Republicans have ducked. “Many people are uncertain in this election year,” he wrote, “but most Americans agree that our country is on the wrong track. I don’t think we can fix our problems unless we can talk about them frankly.”

In any other election year, Thiel’s presence at the convention wouldn’t be all that surprising. A known libertarian, he was one of the most prominent backers of Ron Paul’s 2012 Super PAC, and during primary season he was a key donor to Carly Fiorina’s Super PAC. But the fact that Trump is 2016’s presumptive Republican nominee makes Thiel’s support curious. On everything from trade to immigration to government data collection, Trump’s policies stand in direct opposition to the ones laid out by major industry groups like the Internet Association and TechNet.