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Twitter Asks: When Should We Cut Off Rule-Breaking World Leaders? (reuters.com) 263

Twitter said on this week it will seek public input on when and how it should ban world leaders, saying it was reviewing policy and considering whether the leaders should be held to the same rules as other users. From a report: Social media platforms including Twitter and Facebook have been under scrutiny for the way they handle accounts of politicians and government officials, particularly following their ban on former U.S. President Donald Trump's account for inciting violence after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Twitter said it would release a survey on March 19 to find out whether users think politicians should be subject to the usual Twitter rules and what enforcement action should be taken if they break them. The survey will close on April 12 at 5 p.m PT.
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Twitter Asks: When Should We Cut Off Rule-Breaking World Leaders?

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  • Definitely cut them off the first time they start making baseless and clear-cut allegations of election fraud. I'm glad they've recognized that cutting them off after their supporters attempt to seize power through violence is too late. But there should be other triggers, such as making a clear-cut call for genocide for instance.

    • Or baseless allegations of Russian interference? Remember we went through almost 3 years of Russian interference being investigated with no results.
      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by murdocj ( 543661 )

        Actually there is agreement among all the US intelligence services that Russia worked for trump both in 2016 and 2020. The only thing that couldn't be proven was that the trump campaign coordinated with Russia. And seeing trump's actions as president, it's obvious Putin got his money's worth.

      • by MachineShedFred ( 621896 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @02:56PM (#61176648) Journal

        No results other than indictment, admission of lying to the FBI and congress, the conviction of people, and subsequent midnight pardoning of the same greaseball traitors.

        Oh, and then the report from the intelligence apparatus declassified as required by law this week [dni.gov] showing that Russia tried to do it again for 2020. A report, by the way, that was already written and available to the previous administration on 7 January 2021 which subsequently didn't care or actively went out of their way to do nothing about it. The report says that there were active attempts, which were known of and approved by Putin.

        Seriously, read the report. There's quite a few revelations in there, and if you combine what is stated in the report with public information still available on YouTube, it starts to reveal a pretty shocking pattern of behavior from a few well known names.

        And then a joint statement from DHS and DoJ concurring with the intelligence report, and showing that there was no evidence of successful foreign interference in the 2020 election [justice.gov]. The public either wasn't buying it, or disliked Trump enough to not give a shit about anything Russia and Iran was trying to sell.

        The report also concludes that China did not try to influence the 2020 elections, which is directly contrary to what was being sold to the American public by Trump and his surrogates / campaign.

        Just because they weren't successful, doesn't mean that they didn't try, and that there aren't people complicit in those efforts. Anyone who was complicit should be prosecuted for election law violation, if not treason.

      • Not baseless allegations. The security and intelligence agencies did the investigation and found the allegations to be highly credible. They did NOT implicate Trump. The problem there is that Trump insists that Russians did nothing, and so the followers also insist this, andumpbelieve this reason is because Trump feels that any Russian interference means that he did not win 100% through is own personal charisma. But there is no reasonable doubt that Russian state actors did try to interfere in 2016 elec

    • by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @02:03PM (#61176420) Journal

      Definitely cut them off the first time they start making baseless and clear-cut allegations of election fraud.

      That's nonsense. Leading Democrats and Republican lawmakers have all made baseless and clearcut allegations of election fraud over the last 6 years. The person who defines "baseless" can ban whoever they want. Who gets to define that?

      You don't care about your own party, you want to hurt the other party, and that is what's wrong with America.

      • "Baseless" can be factually defined. We live in an objective reality.

        • Are you sure :)

        • by wiggles ( 30088 )

          The problem is that what is pushed as 'objective reality' depends on perspective, so it's not really objective. Too often public opinion is mistaken for objectivity on any number of hot button topics.

        • > "Baseless" can be factually defined. We live in an objective reality

          You are away that we're discussing claims made by *politicians* right?

          I mean one could declare that when Hillary makes claims of voter fraud or suppression or whatever else is defined as "not baseless" because she puts a D after her name. "Objective reality" in mass-market US politics - I'm not so sure about that.

      • by fluffernutter ( 1411889 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @03:03PM (#61176680)
        He called the georgia governer and told him to find votes. What the hell did he mean if not commit fraud.
    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by mi ( 197448 )

      the first time they start making baseless and clear-cut allegations of election fraud

      What makes "election fraud" accusations — baseless or well-grounded — so special?

      Maybe, accounts should be cut for making any "baseless" accusations? Like the already-cited "Russian collusion"? Or "systemic racism"?

      Most importantly, do you really want Twitter to decide, what is and what is not "baseless"? Perhaps, they should simply stick to being a forum — public space — for everyone, like Slashdot?

    • At the end of the day, this article is only talking about trump and just using a fake pretext of "world leaders". I can't stand trump, but he's a creation of the same media organizations who want to silence him. At the end of the day, I think the left needs to have their political social media platforms and the right needs to make their own. (just like all the biased news channels)
  • immediately (Score:5, Insightful)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:30PM (#61176282) Homepage Journal

    Either you stand by your policies or they mean nothing.

    Twitter's stated policies are utterly meaningless because they make so many exceptions.

    • Re:immediately (Score:5, Informative)

      by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:37PM (#61176322) Journal

      Yes this - Twitter's big problem right now is there a perception that some animals are little more equal. Ether have rules and enforce them for all users or don't. The moment you make exceptions because 'he is a senator' or 'she's the president' or 'they're a celebrity', 'but its a person of color' whatever - you are taking a side in the debate. Set some ground rules and make everyone follow them no matter who they are and hit them with the same consequences when they don't follow them or you deserve every bit of hate and criticism thrown your way.

      • Re:immediately (Score:5, Insightful)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @02:46PM (#61176598) Homepage Journal

        Exceptions are fine as long as they are clear and documented.

        Twitter has a public interest exception, which is what's at question here.

        Twitter also gives established accounts a bit more leeway than brand new ones, because brand new accounts are often created by trolls to evade bans.

        There is no exception for people of colour, in fact it seems like the opposite is true.

    • Yeah, that's the best option. Better yet ban all officials from communicating by twitter regardless of their relative failure to follow the rules. Twitter wasn't designed to be a public broadcast system, and they cannot be when they're arbitrarily blocking people for wrongthink.

      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        No Twitter is great for allowing people to communicate with their representatives. It makes democracy more accessible because the media is no longer the gatekeeper for public discourse, and because individually writing to or calling politicians is private between two people rather than in a public forum.

        For all it's faults Twitter has been great for getting people closer to their representitives.

    • by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @02:18PM (#61176478) Homepage Journal

      People don't use twitter to "stay connected," they use it to find content that pisses them off, and then to scream about it. And also they use it to spread disinformation of every variety, push for harmful political extremism on both sides, and launch smear campaigns to try and destroy people's lives.

      Online bullying, too.

      I don't think this is entirely the fault of Twitter's owners. They just created the platform and the worst of human nature came right out.

      I don't use Twitter. Never will.

    • Social Media Companies are being paid by advertisers to expose their ads to as many people as popular.
      User Generated Content brings in a lot of content for views. Political figures can bring in a lot of views too.
      So by allowing anyone to break your rules and policies is just the same as your company supporting and backing on what is being said. Because they are profiting off of that.
      So when a political figure decides to post false information that causes people to act based on the false information which

      • I think it's much worse than that. I think the "added value" is not just ads. Not a matter of finding wannabe customers. It isn't even fitting the best ads to the best targets. It's in manipulating the potential customers into purchase decisions.

        (Not actually stated that way in The Hype Machine (at least not yet and I only have a couple of chapters to go), but it's my hypothetical extension of what he's said so far. (He doesn't mention "drop", either, but I think the "drop" is more powerful than the "lift

    • We have due process in the United States. Consider the no-fly list, for example. There are many cases where people have been added to the list in error, or due to unproven allegations. Or consider all the overzealous DMCA takedowns.

      Zero tolerance always leads to hell.

    • So, kind of like DMCA takedowns?

  • by fleeped ( 1945926 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:31PM (#61176294)

    at an official capacity. Otherwise, they just have censorship and demagogy powers over a nation, even more than they already do. And not everybody wants to be submitted to having to use Twatter to get access to what "world leader" XYZ wants to say at an official capacity.

    • While true, political leaders having their own app you can get updates from sounds even more dystopian.

    • by fermion ( 181285 )
      I think the accounts should be under different rules. They should not be able to delete a post. They should not be allowed to follow anyone. They should not be allowed to unfollow anyone who follows them. No retweets.
    • Who qualifies for this ban, exactly?

      Presidents and Prime Ministers only? Then they'll call themselves "Dear Leader" or "Supreme Leader" or "Commander in Chief" so they don't qualify under the ban.
      Any major government leader? So exclude members of Congress? Really?
      How about other government leaders? Where do you draw the line?
      What size country? Just the big ones? Or Luxembourg too?

      The idea sounds nice, until you start getting into the nitty-gritty details.

    • And that sort of used to be the case, at least in a lot of countries. Ie, Obama was not allowed to use his favorite Blackberry device because it wasn't secure enough. And tweets from presidents in the past were vetted and managed by the communications team, not some late night off-the-cuff rant by a man child with insomnia. Trump changed the rules so that Twitter became an official communication outlet, he even let administration members know that they were fired through public tweets. Just the wrong wa

  • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:38PM (#61176330)
    there's nothing special about them. At best their administrators and at worst their dictators. But they're still just people. Stop putting them on pedestals.
    • by fustakrakich ( 1673220 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:42PM (#61176338) Journal

      Exactly. There is no reason to treat them differently. It's time to knock them down off their pedestals and treat world "leaders" as the peoples servant. In the US we elect them to serve, not rule. We should enforce that when they get too uppity and arrogant.

    • there's nothing special about them.

      Saying there's nothing special about them is a massive overstatement. Or do you have the power to command armies, declare war, set regulations, change laws, appoint judges, collect taxes, commute sentences, or engage in any number of other powers that governments around the world have conferred on their leaders? Those things matter. We've conferred special powers and responsibilities on our leaders, and we expect and desire that they will make use of those powers to engage in activities beyond what a typica

  • I'm going to say yesterday. World leaders have a moral and ethical responsibility to not spread rhetoric and lies that incite hatred and violence. If they cannot abide by that, then pull the plug on them until they can prove that they weren't spreading rhetoric and lies. They can present verifiable facts to state their case. If those facts are not there, then the ban is justified. If facts are there, then reinstate with apologies.
  • by CrimsonAvenger ( 580665 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:42PM (#61176336)

    They should cut off world leaders as soon as they disagree with me in any particular.

    And it's a fair bet that all the answers to this question will reduce down to that....

  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday March 19, 2021 @01:42PM (#61176348)

    Treat everyone the same. World leaders are just people like everyone else. They wipe their ass the same as everyone else.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      World leaders are just people like everyone else. They wipe their ass the same as everyone else.

      No, they wipe their ass with citizens.

  • As long as they are not mandatory to follow.
    Ignore them, block them, unfollow.

    But do NOT disable their accounts or messages.

    The crowds ignoring or laughing at them is a better response.

    They need the feedback to become better humans.

    Unreal conversations are just fairy tales.

    • by Pascoea ( 968200 )

      Unreal conversations are just fairy tales.

      Until people of power recite said fairy tales repeatedly under the guise of them being truthful.

      They need the feedback to become better humans.

      Some people have proven to be immune to anything other than positive feedback.

  • cut off the leaders of Iran or China?
  • I fear problems as Twitter is a USA corporation that has ethical views that are those of people who live in the USA and who get notions of 'true news' from the media in the USA. Is China committing genocide of Uighur muslims [bbc.com], is Alexey Navalny a criminal [cnn.com], did Mohammed bin Salman order the murder of Jamal Khashoggi [bbc.com] ?

    Even in the USA: people of different: social backgrounds; race; religion; where they live; what newspaper they read; what TV they look at; ... will not agree with others as to what is 'true/fake news' and what is morally right/wrong.

    • So then... No rules, no truth?

      Lies are lies, but there are lies and there are damn lies. I don't care that much that Justin Bieber lies about how much he likes his new line of hoodies. I do care about lies that impact someone's vote or health. I care a great deal about lies about the outcome of an election.

      The more I ruminate on it, the more that I think all provable untruths should be labeled as such and purveyors of those lies should be silenced.

  • What is the fundamental reason for having rules in the first place? Pictures and videos I can understand. But wouldn't it be better for twitter to let anything be said and then allow police to handle all violations of speech laws? To compare, emails are uncensored. You can mass mail emails. But if you email threats, then the police deal with it instead of the email providers. It seems like speech rules on social media is like trying to produce a megaphone that shuts itself down when certain words are spoke
  • World leaders should be held to even higher standards, since what they say can have a much bigger impact than a normal citizen. The biggest problem with Twitter is their obvious bias and double standards, like blocking US politicians while allowing the evil dictator of Iran, allowing violent and offensive BLM and ANTIFA posts.

  • What is Twitter business model? To change culture? To overthrow governments? If yes, how do they get past Step 2 ????. If not, they should try to be apolitical.
  • Much earlier!
  • Never. Why? The media companies are under threat of great financial harm (e.g. section 230 disruption) if not outright banning, even in the land of the First Amendment.

    And as further reasoning: the first thing dictators do is outlaw twitter because they have disapproved speech those in power don't like.

    So, grow some balls, twitter, and refuse to participate in censorship. We see you, tech media giants, under threat of a hundred billion dollars of stock loss if you don't censor "harrassment, oh, and our

  • What's common to all these people Twitter is considering banning?

    They all used Twitter to do what Twitter itself considers worthy of banning!

    Twitter, you're complicit.

    Cut yourself off. Take twitter.com offline for a while, use the time to reflect on the effects of your own contribution to these results you recognize as problems

  • A corporation exists only at the pleasure of the sovereign government. Prior to 1877, all corporations were forcibly wound down after 10, 15, 20, 25, or 30 years hence the name back then of a 10-year corporation through 30-year corporation. When should Twitter be forcibly shut down as a public menace?

All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin

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