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Twitter Flags Trump and White House Tweets About Minneapolis Protests for 'Glorifying Violence' (wsj.com) 603

Twitter placed a notice on a tweet from President Trump, shielding it from view for breaking what the company said are its rules about glorifying violence [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: Mr. Trump's tweet was a comment on the violent protests in Minnesota. The post can now only be seen after users click a box with a notice saying it violated Twitter's rules against encouraging violence, but it otherwise remains visible. "We've taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the Tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance," Twitter said on its official communications account.

This is the first time such a step has been taken against a head of state for breaking Twitter's rules about glorifying violence, a company spokesman said. The company said users' ability to interact with the tweet will be limited, and that users can retweet it with comment, but not like, reply to, or otherwise retweet it. "...These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won't let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!," Mr. Trump's tweet said.
The official account of the White House, which tweeted Trump's message, has been flagged as well.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Twitter Flags Trump and White House Tweets About Minneapolis Protests for 'Glorifying Violence'

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  • Another day (Score:5, Funny)

    by matthiashj ( 6373204 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @05:54AM (#60119820)
    Another day, another USA-centric news about some domestic whatever no one really cares about. Just go ahead and do your civil war and stop dragging your feet.
    • Re:Another day (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hcs_$reboot ( 1536101 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:11AM (#60119836)
      No one cares about? One major social media vs the POTUS? It's a major crisis that can have huge repercussions, especially a few months before a presidential election.
      • Re:Another day (Score:4, Interesting)

        by bistromath007 ( 1253428 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:33AM (#60120012)

        Can but won't, because nobody actually cares about the issues in any way that will cause violence against meaningful targets. The American revolutionary spirit is flaccid and vestigial. Things that could have huge repercussions happen every few days, and they never do, because the real activities of the ruling elite are wholly separate from the political theater we're all enrapt with.

      • Re:Another day (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:17AM (#60120224)

        "social media vs. POTUS"?

        What do you mean? It is one social media reigning in an abusive user, nothing more.

      • by znrt ( 2424692 )

        huge repercussions? the decadence of the political system was set in motion years ago already, and with the economy in shambles it's not really hard to guess where it will lead, these are just some of the symptoms. anecdotal in the big picture.

        interesting to observe but no, for the rest of the world this doesn't change anything.

    • Re:Another day (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jeremyp ( 130771 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:59AM (#60120114) Homepage Journal

      "When the looting starts the shooting starts" was written by a man who has the weapons capability to level every city in my country and whatever country it is that you live in.

      I care.

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:12AM (#60119840)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:16AM (#60119850)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:20AM (#60119864)
      Theres tons of people right now egging on the looter violence including prominent politicians and Twitter is doing frack all about it. Its not about whether you 'violate' the TOS at all which is so vague it can mean anything anyway. Its whether you are on 'their' side.
      • by Junta ( 36770 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:23AM (#60119978)

        To be fair, are they explicitly egging on the violence or just the protests at large?

        Trump's comment is promising escalation to lethal force against admittedly violent, but non lethal protests by citizens. Reports indicate that the protests only escalated to violence after the police started using riot control against non-violent protests. The last thing the situation needs is to threaten further escalation, as here the anger of the protests is exacerbated by the threats and actions.

      • by sycodon ( 149926 )

        Frances Fisher: You want a Race war, we'll give you a race war. [boundingintocomics.com]

        Twitter post deleted by her or Twitter. No info available.

    • by Knightman ( 142928 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:22AM (#60120254)

      S230 was written by legislators who only knew about the combox on the NY Times. It would never be written for modern social media platforms for precisely the reason I just pointed out. In 1996, the closest thing to a "platform" was GeoCities or Tripod. Only a liar would conflate that with what we call platforms today.

      Uhm, section 230 was written by Ron Wyden and Chris Cox and I can guarantee that they wouldn't agree with your assessment.

      Section 230 was specifically written for providers of an interactive computer service in an effort encourage the unfettered and unregulated development of free speech on the Internet, but also allow online services to implement their own standards for policing content and provide for child safety.

      At no point does it mean that any service provider needs to be neutral for the simple reason it's their property with their rules. Can the providers be hypocrites and behave like assholes or being totally biased? Of course they can, because that's not the point of 230. Is 230 a perfect solution? No, but it's way better than the alternatives that I've seen proposed so far.

  • Context, please (Score:5, Informative)

    by heldal ( 2015350 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:14AM (#60119842)

    As with everything in the US which might in any way be percieved as race related, I've learned there's a LOT of historical context us foreigners have no idea about - which makes it very hard to understand why and how people react to whatever is the story of the day. Thankfully, TFA actually mentions it:

    Trump is intentionally or inadvertently quoting former Miami Police Chief Walter Headley. In December 1967, months before riots broke out during the (Nixon) Republican National Convention, Headley said “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” at the announcement of a new “get tough” policy for policing black neighborhoods. Headley promised to use shotguns, dogs, and aggressive “stop and frisk” tactics in a bid to reduce crime. “We don’t mind being accused of police brutality,” the New York Times reported him saying at the time. “They haven’t seen anything yet.”

    • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:38AM (#60119896)
      I doubt very many people if any on either side was influenced or even knew that quote existed before a couple days ago.
      • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bistromath007 ( 1253428 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:40AM (#60120038)

        I didn't until right now. This kind of "fossil record" argument is exactly why I roll my eyes whenever I hear about a new phrase that's "becoming a racist dog whistle," because the vast majority of people who start saying it don't know or care about that context at all, which means it isn't meaningfully present.

        • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

          by Ed Tice ( 3732157 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @10:55AM (#60121030)
          Seriously? And this is +5. I didn't know or understand this quote. But do you think a single black person who heard Nixon say this ever forgot it? And that fact that white people *don't* know that the Nixon said this is a damning indictment of us all.

          And a primer on proper human behavior. If you inadvertently say something offensive due to your own ignorance and it gets pointed out, don't threaten the person (or organization) who was nice enough to tell you about the error of your ways. Sincerely apologize to all involved.

          If DT has said "I'm so sorry, I didn't understand that reference. I'm ashamed for speaking so intemperately" this would be much of a non-story. The doubling-down indicates that he is only sorry he got called out.

    • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Informative)

      by LostMyAccount ( 5587552 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:53AM (#60119922)

      One of the big questions I have is how they end this thing.

      I live in Minneapolis, and this is rioting on a scale I don't think we've seen before, I'm pretty sure it's bigger than the 1967 riots. The only larger confrontation might have been the Teamsters Strike in the 1930s.

      • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:23AM (#60119974) Homepage Journal

        Maybe enact some real reforms that deal with the cops murdering black people problem.

        Thing about riots is that while some people there are just in it for the looting that's not why it starts. It starts because of some grievance that isn't getting resolved and resolving it is usually the best way to end the riot.

        • by HiThere ( 15173 )

          To be accurate, it may not be the best way to end the current riot, but it's the best way to prevent the next one.

          How to end the current one...that's difficult, when the government has repeatedly proven itself untrustworthy. Promises won't work, because they can't be believed. A few days ago I would have suggested arresting the accused police officers...but I'm not sure it hasn't gone beyond that point. (Why didn't they arrest the accused officers? I haven't heard any sensible explanation of that. You

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by bobbied ( 2522392 )

          Maybe enact some real reforms that deal with the cops murdering black people problem.

          The problem here is THEY ARE. Four cops lost their jobs here and they all are likely facing charges. They all have faced nearly universal condemnation for what happened, literally NOBODY is trying to justify their actions. Justice is on it's way. Investigations are being done and I'm confident that punishment is going to come, it just takes time.

          Mob lynchings and riots are NOT justice, they are just senseless violence. They lead to MORE death, MORE racial discord, more of what the protestors claim they

          • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Informative)

            by weilawei ( 897823 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:17AM (#60120220)

            Tone deaf as fuck. They've been telling you. Arrest the murderers. There are clear videos, from multiple angles, of one office watching, two restraining Floyd, and 1 choking him to death, as he cracks a joke, "hey kids, don't do drugs!".

            They're not even in custody. The AG gave a statement saying there was, "evidence that does not support criminal charges". That was like dropping a MOAB on the 3rd precinct. The protestors didn't appreciate being shot without warning (no verbal command to move), they didn't appreciate being mollycoddled.

            "evidence that does not support criminal charges"

            Really? You'd think they'd share it by now.

          • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:21AM (#60120248) Homepage Journal

            We have seen this before, some cops suspended or sacked, maybe one or two are prosecuted, but then it happens again.

            That's because prosecuting them works on the assumption that it's a few bad apples and once they are gone the problem is fixed. It's not, it's a systemic problem.

            Police policy needs to change, training needs to change, management needs to change, the whole culture needs to change. It's unlikely that no one knew these cops were being heavy handed and that was an opportunity to stop them before someone died. It usually turns out that there were complaints about them before, people badly injured by them.

            • by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

              Dozens of complaints, apparently. At least one of them was at the centre of a lawsuit against the police department, which they settled.

          • Re:Context, please (Score:4, Interesting)

            by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @09:14AM (#60120490) Homepage Journal

            Arresting the cops responsible is just the start of what they want, not the end. They want reforms of policing in general so that this doesn't happen again.

            It keep happening over and over, it's not just a few bad cops, it's a systemic problem. The system doesn't prevent it, doesn't intervene before it escalates from being heavy handed to killing people. These guys should never have become cops in the first place, or been thrown out of the force years ago, or trained not to use this amount of force, or any number of other interventions that could have saved this guy's life.

        • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

          by LostMyAccount ( 5587552 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:00AM (#60120116)

          Real reforms are impossible without the city council voiding the police union contract, which basically means disbanding the police department and re-forming a new one under a different labor agreement with much stronger police accountability rules.

          I totally support this idea, but I don't know how you do it in any practical way without losing law enforcement service. Unlike disk drives, an entire police department is not hot swappable. And it's not like any kind of reforms can happen on a timeline that ends the riots and destruction before it gets worse.

          The really terrible thing is that the life for people in this area (much of which is low income) is that their lives all now got much shittier. *If* the businesses that were destroyed re-open, it will be years. They've lost a ton of basic consumer services. I also worked in this area in the early 1990s and it was ghetto-level bad, the city has worked for years and years to improve this area and it's all gone. It will be a burned out hull for a long time, especially with the economic destruction of the

          IMHO, despite the risks, there should have been a much stronger show of force last night to put an end to the wanton destruction. Rather than encouraging the protesters by abandoning the police precinct station, they should have setup high-volume firehose pumps and just started blasting water at the crowd and combined that with a massive show of force of riot police who advance on remaining crowds, detaining anyone who is not dispersing. Zip-tie them in place and continue advancing, and if the crowd fights back, swing those riot sticks and beat them into submission. I'm pretty sure that it won't take much show of force to disperse the crowds when they find out that fighting the cops in the street is a lot rougher than burning and looting.

          Does this make it worse? Short term yes, but nobody seems to give a shit about the next 5-10 years of that area being a vacant lot waste land that people have to live in. Tell me about how awesome Watts, Detroit, Newark, Southside LA got after their riots. All that does is make poverty worse, breed crime and resentment, more police conflict and re-booting the whole fucking cycle.

      • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

        Or Watts, or the Railway Riots, or the mine stikes in Appalachia. This is probably the biggest upheaval MPLS has seen, but its not that big (yet).

        The safest bet is like everything else it will blow over. The city management and police will promise to do better, a handful of mostly innocent good Officers will be sacrificed on the alter of appeasement along side the violent thugs (who sadly managed to become officers) who started this (that absolutely do deserve to be strung up). A few probably not all togeth

    • by kfh227 ( 1219898 )

      Trump use tongue in cheek racist rhetoric that everyone dismisses as nothing. But hte actual racists hear it loud and clear. So he gets that tiny fragment of the population to vote for him ...... hey 10,000 votes is significant given how presidential elections are nearly a 50/50 vote split every 4 years.

      • There's nothing racist about policing the black population just as you would the rest of the population. What you're proposing is racist.
      • Re:Context, please (Score:5, Insightful)

        by bobbied ( 2522392 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:00AM (#60120124)

        How convenient.. Trump is blowing the "Dog whistle" that only the racist hear?

        That's a cop out. It says that you fully admit that Trump isn't really saying anything overtly racist, that his words and actions are NOT actually racist, they are just seen as racist by racists... Oh and folks like you who happened to be able to hear what the racists hear because you are somehow in tune to the Dog Whistle too.

        Trump isn't all that hard to understand. He's not skilled in being subtle and I've NEVER heard him actually try. Have you? So in your world, the brash "in your face" Trump all of a sudden goes to a "read between the lines" mode, in stark contrast to his normal character, to communicate racist ideology? I find that very unlikely. What I do find likely is that folks *choose* to read between the lines when Trump talks or Tweets and they insert what they expect to see there, and in your case, you expect to see a racist, and that's what you see.

        Trump is a plain talking, no holds barred, brash guy who doesn't really care what anybody thinks. He talks from the cuff and what you hear is what he's thinking, not some trite set of rote platitudes that have been focus group tested. You get Trump, unvarnished, rough, clear and exactly what he's thinking. He's not some subtle, read between the lines guy and your attempts to do that with him are misplaced.

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:22AM (#60119872)

    As the con artist himself said, it's due to weak leadership in Washington [imgur.com].

    And for the record, a St. Paul cop was recorded deliberately destroying property [9cache.com] while trying to conceal his identity [9cache.com].

  • Section 230 (Score:4, Interesting)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:31AM (#60119884)

    Without section 230 slashdot and many hobbyist or topic oriented forums would cease to exist. They would become offtopic spammed and become like geocities got in the 1990s. There would be no way to keep discussions on topic. And no forcing everyone to go to âoeuser moderationâ will fail too because that can be trivially hacked. Trump should get off twitter, it wasnâ(TM)t invented for him. He should have the decency to only use stuff invented for conservatives.

    • I disagree.

      I think Slashdot and sites like it would still operate as they do now. Those that choose to exercise editorial control and curate their user's content would simply lose their legal protections from liability for the content they provide. They would be treated more like newspapers and media, which are legally responsible for their material.

      I don't think this is a huge problem for sites like Slashdot. A site is free to choose how they want to operate. IF you want the legal protections of Sectio

      • Sure, sure. Right up until someone decides to sue Slashdots' owners for something some random troll posts here, because they're legally liable for whatever content is found here.
    • I think now the only way to address and reign-in the rampant, blatant, ideological censorship driven by personal-feelings-override-facts & your-view-is-different-from-mine censorship that occurs on (anti)social media sites such as Twitter, Reddit, Instagram is to get rid of section 230. Big social media sites have taken advantage of their protective status for too long and have become corrupt. They need to be responsible for what they show, and more importantly, for what they don't show and try to sil

  • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:33AM (#60119890)
    The vast majority of tweets are supporting the looter violence and Twitter isn't lifting a finger for this 'glorification'. Nothing to see folks! https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZ... [twimg.com] https://twitter.com/solomongeo... [twitter.com] https://twitter.com/hotpocket_... [twitter.com] https://twitter.com/IlhanMN/st... [twitter.com] https://twitter.com/Communism_... [twitter.com] https://twitter.com/ViciousVib... [twitter.com] https://twitter.com/TeeExTee/s... [twitter.com]
    • by nagora ( 177841 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:45AM (#60119910)

      The vast majority of tweets are supporting the looter violence and Twitter isn't lifting a finger for this 'glorification'.

      Are they all president of America with the world's media relaying their words to people who would never waste their time on Twitter?

      You can't continually abuse your position for your ego-wanking and then complain when people slap you down before some nobody no one's heard of.

      • by Jarwulf ( 530523 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:49AM (#60119912)
        So the rules should only be applied to the President and nobody else including celebs and other politicians even though the vast majority of rule breaking is coming from them and 'busy' Twitter finds a way to regularly ban regular people who are on the other side?
    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:27AM (#60119984) Homepage Journal

      Wait, what is "supporting the looter violence" about Ilhan Omar's tweets? I'll quote them here:

      I am heartbroken.

      Horrified at the needless death of George Floyd, another innocent black man murdered by police in our community.

      Frustrated that we keep finding ourselves in this position as a city.

      Angry that justice still seems out of reach.

      Our anger is just.

      Our anger is warranted.

      And our priority right now must be protecting one another.

      Can you explain that?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:35AM (#60120016) Homepage Journal

      Your selection of tweets is really bizarre. Some are from before the rule change which isn't retroactive. Some actually seem to be condemning the violence, not supporting it. E.g.

      Iâ(TM)m old enough to remember a few weeks ago when people said taking justice into your own hands was vigilantism and we have a criminal justice system for a reason. I guess it only goes one way.

      Ashley Rae Groypenberg @Communism_Kills

      Deerkin supports rioting.
      What a shocking development

      @TeeExTee

      Along with the Omar tweet I addressed separately it looks like you are just link spamming in the hope that no-one bothers to check.

  • by Sumguy2436 ( 6186944 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @06:57AM (#60119928)

    Just another example of Twitter doubling down in its political bias. Twitter is full of people actually glorifying violence without repercussions.

    There's tons of people at best condoning at worst calling for assaults on cops, more riots and more looting. Throw in the occasional thinly veiled lynching call and you've got the current acceptable-use situation on Twitter. The usual extremists have co-opted the situation, from anti-capitalists, to antifa, to anarchists. And twitter is totally fine with that.

    • Just another example of Twitter doubling down in its political bias. Twitter is full of people actually glorifying violence without repercussions.

      It's not political bias to target someone who's actively targeting you. I'm sure Trump would have been fine if he didn't throw his executive order temper tantrum the other day.

      Come to my house and and make a mess expect a reaction, I don't give a shit if you're blue or red.

  • by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:10AM (#60119944) Homepage
    No one else but Trump could have launched so many personal attacks, called for so many bad things to happen to people, wanted people to actually take cites--and not get banned. I applaud Twitter for standing up against this thug.
  • by guacamole ( 24270 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @07:45AM (#60120056)

    That's the big question. There are riots, businesses being looted, buildings set on fire. At this point, is sending in troops to reign in the violent protesters is glorifying violence or is it enforcing the law for the sake of security and peace of the rest?

  • There was no "glorification of violence" in that tweet. That was a warning that if legal and legitimate protests turn into violent riots and looting, the government will have to respond with force. In other words, if violence breaks out it will have to be met with force. That is not glorifying violence, it's a warning against violence.

    The incident that led here was Twitter labeling as false a tweet about fraud in mail-in ballots, which was actually true. Not only is mail-in voting incredibly vulnerable to fraud, there is evidence it happens. People have been convicted of it! Recently!

    In the end, it seems like Twitter is almost intentionally trying to bring this to a head in a way that puts them at a great disadvantage. Not only are they openly exercising editorial power, they're doing it wrong!

  • by VendettaMF ( 629699 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @08:40AM (#60120356) Homepage

    What do you mean the gun nuts aren't all immediately out and ready to protect the nation from a wannabe murderous tyrannical dotard? Wasn't that the whole point?

  • Democracy cannot function if the citizens only see and hear the curated things that our president says. We need to see it all: vitriol, violence, and if there is any - insight and truth. There's 10,000 other things like this that Twitter doesn't censor. There's simply no way to be consistent here. Let the reader be the curator, not Twitter.

    • This is so disingenuous it is almost laughable.

      "In particular, he was involved in the shooting death of a man who had stabbed other people before attacking police, as well as some other undisclosed complaints. Klobuchar did not prosecute Chauvin and other officers involved in the first death, which occurred in October 2006 while she was running for Senate. The case was under investigation when Klobuchar took office in the Senate in January 2007," ... do I have to pick that apart for you or can you do it you

  • by walterbyrd ( 182728 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @10:14AM (#60120808)

    1. This proves that Twitter is indeed a publisher, not a platform. If you have such "rules" you are a publisher.

    2. Twitter is politically motivated and edits selectively according to their bias. Other people on twitter "glorify violence" far more than Trump, yet they are not censored.

  • by cascadingstylesheet ( 140919 ) on Friday May 29, 2020 @11:12AM (#60121118) Journal

    Not to mention, they aren't social distancing! Or wearing masks!

    If you'd like to see what a "peaceful protest" looks like, look at the protests against what were perceived as excessive COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. Remember? Those horrible people who we were supposed to treat as extremely dangerous?

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