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.
On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:4, Insightful)
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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.
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Informative)
The allegations of Russian interference were never baseless, GP is confused. They were 100% interfering. What was never proved was that Trump and Putin somehow came to some arrangement or colluded to do so. Yet, speaking to GP's point, Twitter and Facebook were littered with accusations that Trump was somehow being paid or blackmailed (with ridiculous details). That was never proved and is in fact pretty silly, but it was never dealt with like other political lies are now being treated.
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The allegations of Russian interference were never baseless, GP is confused. They were 100% interfering.
And there was election fraud in 2020 [heritage.org]. Not nearly enough (afawct) to change the result, but it 100% happened. Similarly, the Russian interference had no material effect on the 2016 election, even though you are 100% correct they were trying.
The person who gets to decide who to ban will choose. It will not be based on facts. Power corrupts, and they will have power. It can thus never be an impartial, unbiased decision.
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, Twitter is a private platform that is the sole property of the organization that operates it, they can ban anyone for any reason they please. Property rights. They built it.
Personally, I would urge them to never ban anyone, for any reason whatsoever. In a democracy, the free marketplace of ideas has to exist, and the best ideas will always win. Always. Silencing others is the work of fascists and authoritarians, not free-thinking liberal minded citizens.
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Twitter is a private platform that is the sole property of the organization that operates it, they can ban anyone for any reason they please. Property rights. They built it.
The phone company owns the phone lines and equipment your phone calls go through - but they can't ban people... Social media with more than 100k user's should be subject to title 2, just like the phone company.
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Yes but you seem to be confusing me or a sole prop, partnership, or trust. Twitter is a corporate entity created by state and federal law engaging in interstate commerce. Twitter is not its shareholders but a separate legal entity created entirely by state authority, the state does not possess the legal authority to censor my speech and
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that if you never ban anyone for anything you will eventually be overrun by trolls. Once the troll density gets too high, non-trolls abandon the platform.
Consider, how many people have ditched their landline and don't answer the phone unless the caller is known to them because of the robo-trolls.
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If they could ban anyone for any reason they please, then they would need to take responsibility for any content they leave. Including CP, including Al Quaida recruitment, including slander and calls for violence.
They can choose a set of rules and then they are required to apply these rules uniformly.
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The rules for world leaders should be the similar to the rules for non-world leaders. Of course, there is some public interesting in what the world leaders says, and what they say does make Twitter money. So I would think that world leaders should be classified similar to well known celebrities. If Kanye can get banned for saying something on Twitter, then Biden should get banned for saying the exact same thing. But for world leaders, because they can cause so many problems much more easily, should prob
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They were interfering for decades. It just was not a problem before, since they were helping anti-Americans in general [wikipedia.org] and Democrats in particular [forbes.com]:
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Informative)
No results? People went to prison over it.
And then were pardoned [npr.org] by the person who benefited from said interference.
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The convicted FBI lawyer didn't go to prison [washingtonpost.com].
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Seems like a good reason to make it impossible for a president to pardon someone whose crime had an (intended) benefit to that president.
Rig the election? No pardon for you.
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like a good reason to make it impossible for a president to pardon someone whose crime had an (intended) benefit to that president. Rig the election? No pardon for you.
There's actually a moderately-solid constitutional argument, based both on the text of the Constitution and Madison's notes on the discussion in the Constitutional Convention, that the phrase "except in cases of impeachment" in the pardon power was intended not only to mean that the president couldn't pardon officials who were impeached, but also that the president couldn't pardon people whose criminal acts were related to the president's impeachment (or, the stronger form, that presidents who are impeached lose the pardon power entirely, though that has less scholarly support).
Since the articles of Trump's first impeachment specified acts related to Russian election shenanigans, if we adopt this interpretation (acts related to impeachment are not pardonable), then several of Trump's more egregious pardons are invalid.
Although I don't think it will happen, I'd really like to see the DoJ take this argument to court and attempt to reverse the pardons of Roger Stone, etc. Partly because the pardons themselves were wrong, but even more importantly, to limit the ability of presidents to get their lackeys to commit crimes. If a president can plausibly and convincingly promise a pardon, they can get people to do anything and keep their mouths shut about it, keeping their own hands clean (unless they keep tapes of the conspiracy, etc.). But if the lackeys understand that the president's pardon power might disappear, they'll be much less likely to risk committing crimes on the president's behalf -- and far more willing to rat him out in exchange for leniency.
This particular limitation on presidential power seems like a Good Thing for the country. Also, I'd love to see that smug bastard Stone get what he deserves.
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> No results? People went to prison over it.
No, nobody went to prison for Russian collusion. That is a complete hoax. Read Matt Taibi's coverage if you're not just trolling.
They charged some people with process crimes during the investigation, many of which were based on fabrications to the FISA Court. They just prosecuted Clinesmith for that, e.g.
Now that Putin has invited Biden to a live televised discussion and debate, I hope Joe brings up the topic and discloses any additional information we don't
Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Informative)
> No results? People went to prison over it.
No, nobody went to prison for Russian collusion. That is a complete hoax.
There were actual Russian election meddling crimes charged. The problem is that all of those charged had left the country before the charges were filed.
They charged some people with process crimes during the investigation
That, too, but that doesn't change the fact that Mueller found ample evidence of actual election meddling, and lots of indications of coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. Mueller chose an unusually-strict definition of "coordination", though (not the one the FEC uses) and none of the evidence of coordination met the requirements of the high bar he set.
The claim that the Russian election meddling investigation found nothing is flat false. Read Mueller's report. Or, for a more detailed view, read the report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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" since long before Trump's candidacy."
But also DURING the Trump candidacy.
"Now, can you name an American?"
Why? I already met the criteria: "Name one person, who went to prison for colluding with or otherwise helping Russia elect Trump."
You got what you asked for. We're done. Now you are literally moving the goal posts.
Re: "Russian collusion" was a fake (Score:2)
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It matters to whether or not there was a "Russian Collusion" — Trump seeking Russian help and using it to get elected.
Mueller's investigation found no evidence of such [theintercept.com], but people continue to make baseless claims to the contrary every day. Without losing their Twitter accounts — "civic integrity" be damned — which is why it matters.
Truth matters, fluffernutter...
Re:"Russian collusion" was a fake (Score:5, Insightful)
For starters, the crime is conspiracy, not colluding, so no, no one ever went to prison for colluding.
A key part of a conspiracy charge is that the participants have to knowingly be trying to break the law. A conspiracy charge doesn't just require proof of a crime (or attempted crime), it also requires proof that the parties knew it was a crime.
The short version of the Mueller report is "We have a ton of evidence that the Trump campaign was involved with Russia, but we can't prove they knew what they were doing was illegal. They might have been too stupid to know it was a crime. We recommend impeachment instead of criminal charges."
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Re:On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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"Baseless" can be factually defined. We live in an objective reality.
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Are you sure :)
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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.
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> "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.
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In the case of this issue, I'd say it should be based on election fraud indictments and convictions and math. If the number of indictments+convictions is at least equal to the vote margin, it's not baseless, otherwise it is.
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So in your ideal world, politicians can't talk about election fraud until people have convicted or indicted?
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Here she is lying about votes [politifact.com] without arrests or indictments (your standard), and here she is implying that the election was stolen from her [usatoday.com]. She's been making similar comments for the last four years you can search for them (but you won't because you cheer for the D team).
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From what I can find she said it once in September 2019, in a CBS interview. [washingtonpost.com] Which isn't good, but it also wasn't in a Twitter post, and if we use any sense of proportion here it's a vanishing rounding error compared to Trump's Big Lie.
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ok, let's assume you aren't partisan for a moment, and that in theory, you might choose the R side over the D side. I don't think that's true, but suspension of belief and all that.
IF we look at that way, the difference is that Trump acted on what he said, he actively tried to get the election overturned, whereas Hillary just talked about it being illegitimate. So the difference here is action, not some tweets on Twitter. It wasn't the speech you object to (because you're ok when Hillary says largely simila
Re: On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:3)
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You don't get to pull bullshit like "who get's to define", and you sure as fuck don't get to compare what has happened in the past 6 months with anything "clearcut" that has come before it,
I get to say anything I want because of freedom of speech. Enjoy.
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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?
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Bzzt! Wrong. They have not charged anybody w/ Officer Brian Sicknick's murder. They have charged two gentlemen w/ using chemical spray. So you can't really claim the cop was killed by the insurrectionist mob. Unless you still believe the now recanted tales of Officer Sicknick being struck with a fire extinguisher? Perhaps you see the harm in rushing to silenc
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He apparently died as a result of the attack, I don't think the presence or absence or type of charges matters? If nobody had been charged in relation to the attack at all, would that mean he wasn't killed? https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com]
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Did he? Was there an attack?
Yes, actually, in such a high-profile case, with active investigation by the world's top investigators unable to bring any charges, it would mean exactly that.
There is a camera on every corner in DC — plus bodycams and cell-phones. FBI is appealing to snitches nationwide to recognize protesters on thousands of photos and videos [slashdot.org]. There are
Re: On the first baseless election fraud claim (Score:2)
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All of Trump's specific claims were baseless.
Only his general claims had any reasonable basis.
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The case Trump brought were declared moot because he 'conceded'.
I don't remember Trump conceding.
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You're right. https://www.forbes.com/sites/a... [forbes.com]
For some reason he isn't paying up. https://www.dallasnews.com/new... [dallasnews.com]
Extra padding because the stupid ascii art filter can't tell a legitimate link from swastikas. Blah blah blah more text. Let's see how much it takes. Time to paste some public domain text. Here we go.
Thousands of miles away, on the surface of Sol's second planet, a heavy, milky fog crept like a sentient thing up the side of a towering apartment dwelling. In and out of window recesses it stole,
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Just don't make the link text a URL too [google.com]. Slashdot still shows the domain behind it.
immediately (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
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)
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.
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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.
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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.
Twitter thrives on Drama (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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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
Posting ads or manipulating buyers? (Score:2)
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
Due process (Score:2)
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.
DMCA takedowns (Score:2)
So, kind of like DMCA takedowns?
World leaders should be banned from using Twatter (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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While true, political leaders having their own app you can get updates from sounds even more dystopian.
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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.
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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
The same time you'd cut anyone else off (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The same time you'd cut anyone else off (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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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
Yesterday? (Score:2)
Well, there's the obvious choice... (Score:3)
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....
Treat everyone the same (Score:5, Insightful)
Treat everyone the same. World leaders are just people like everyone else. They wipe their ass the same as everyone else.
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No, they wipe their ass with citizens.
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I wish I had a funny mod point for you.
No to Censorship (Score:2)
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.
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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.
Have these "fair" platforms ever (Score:2)
Who's rules, who's truth ? (Score:3)
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.
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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.
Is it possible to have no rules? (Score:2)
Stupid question (Score:2)
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.
Twitter buisness model (Score:2)
TWO WORDS (Score:2)
No (Score:2)
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
Twitter, you're complicit (Score:2)
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
When to shut down a pariah corporation? (Score:2)
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When did repeating lies become cool?
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Really? I did not know that! I wonder why?
encourage paying for sat radio or streaming services?
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When did censorship become cool?
It didn't, you don't understand the topic.
Re:I think it sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
This is no different than a mall asking you to leave the property for yelling about politics. The president has a dedicated room in his house for speaking with members of the media. Not to mention the actual whitehouse.gov website.
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Twitter is allowed to ban people. We are allowed to say they suck for banning people.
And Twitter sucks, as do all censorous advocates.
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This is no different than a mall asking you to leave the property for yelling about politics.
Definitely is different, because a mall isn't designed/intended for people to yell at each other. Twitter is designed for people to yell out at the world. That is what they do.
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The only way to win, Mr. Dorsay, is not to play the game. You have no responsibility, at all, under US law to remove these posts unless they violate the law. Leave it to congress and courts to decide who can say what.
Twitter "wins" by providing a service that people use. They are doing that. With all the news stories, Twitter users must know that there are certain kinds of speech they can't make or find on Twitter. Users probably also know that there are alternate messaging platforms with different rules. As far as I know, there are zero messaging platforms that allow everyone to say whatever the law allows.
And as you must know, the law allows an awful lot ("Congress shall make no law . . .", and all that). So really,
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As far as I know, there are zero messaging platforms that allow everyone to say whatever the law allows.
You must live under a rock? 4chan.org... gab.ai... bitchute.com... mewe.com... there are a number of sites that will only take down illegal content.
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A single, embearded hipster at a private corporation can unilaterally shut down speech by a democratically elected president of the United States, regardless of what you might think of the person.
A single pimply teenager can kick you out of McDonalds, too, not sure why that's suddenly a problem now. Well... actually I do.
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Who are you to say what Mr. Dorsay should put up on his private site? He has no obligation to you or to the first amendment (that's a governmental responsibility, not a corporate one). It isn't as if the (ex)President of the US doesn't have other outlets to exercise his right to speech. All he has to do is hold a press conference and about a million "reporters" will show up.
I am not saying I like Mr. Dorsay's power (or more generally the shareholders of Twitter). He/they has/have too much but collectively i
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Who are you to say what Mr. Dorsay should put up on his private site?
It's not Jack Dorsay's site, he is the CEO. Twitter is not a private company, it's publicly traded.
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That's a pretty ridiculous statement.
In what way can a "single embearded hipster at a private corporation" prevent the President of the United States from walking 100 feet from his office to the Press Briefing Room and saying whatever the living fuck he / she likes into a camera that every network can carry live, and will have links to the video tweeted by thousands of other people seconds after it happens?
You are affording Twitter with far more power than they actually have. Presidents have been talking d