Slashdot Mirror
Why Does Twitter Refuse To Shut Down Donald Trump? (vortex.com)
Lauren Weinstein writes: The conclusion appears inescapable. Twitter apparently has voluntarily chosen to 'look the other way' while Donald Trump spews forth a trolling stream of hate and other abuses that would cause any average Twitter user to be terminated in a heartbeat. There's always room to argue the proprietary or desirability of any given social media content terms of service — or the policy precepts through which they are applied. It is also utterly clear that if such rules are not applied to everyone with the same vigor, particularly when there's an appearance of profiting by making exceptions for particular individuals, the moral authority on which those rules are presumably based is decimated, pointless, and becomes a mere fiction.
Would you rather Twitter shut down no account ever, apply a sort of white-listing policy, or something in the middle?
I propose a test: Create an alternate account and re-post the same things Donald Trump posts. Maybe change the names/groups mentioned in order to protect the innocent.
Then, if Twitter shuts you down, you would have a pretty open and shut case as to preferential and selective treatment.
There are already numerous allegations of Twitter censoring and unverifying the political right or pro-gamergate folks such as Milo Yiannopoulos. Trump is actually a big attention grabber and he is capturing lots of media attention, so censoring him would hurt Twitter more.
A better question may be why they haven't come down harder on terrorist activities on Twitter
Then how about flagging the candidate's offending tweets with a moderator note, "this post crosses the line of hate and criminal advocacy. If the tweeter were not a candidate for public office, this tweet would be blocked and this profile terminated."
A minor correction . Free Speech is the idea that you can say things. Its a spectrum like anything else going from completely permissive on one end to restricted for reasons on the other. Its a completely separate idea from the FIRST AMENDMENT, which is a limitation on the U.S. government. Generally The First Amendment of the U.S. is very permissive of speech, with exceptions for things like obvious inciting of harm (and other unspecified ' i know it when i see it' clauses).
I only mention this because people get these ideas confused and then the conversation stops being about Free Speech, and it starts being only about The First. It limits the conversation to LEGAL arguments, citing court decisions etc and drowns out any moral speech. Its boring to only look at life through the lens of the law.
Good-bye
How dit this idiocy reach the front page of slashdot. Is this the new management at work?
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Congress would spend most of its time dispensing with his vetoes, defunding any department he tried to turn to whatever idiotic or evil plan (if you can call what he does "planning") he had in mind.
why woudl you think this? repubs own both halves of congress, and while I don't think they'll go in for his most radical stuff, they're not going to outwardly challenge or overrule him.
Because it's not the billionaires I feel threatened by, it's people like Hillary who only see their political position and nothing more. She's the one that shuts out people like Lessig from participating in government. Between her, or any other politician, and Trump, Trump is the lesser evil. He's a bumbling buffoon versus someone who deals regularly in shady government practices.
Trump draws the dots and lets his supporters connect them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
And if that's all Trump had proposed that would be one thing. But let's remember what he wants to do to AMERICAN CITIZENS who are Muslims.
What has he proposed for Muslim American citizens? I've seen plenty of his statements about immigration of Muslims, and travel from non-citizen Muslims, but nothing about US citizens. What is his actual statement - his words - on such a topic?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I think it is true, actually: while, in general, Twitter sets the bar for bans fairly high, if you draw the ire of feminists or social justice advocates on Twitter, Twitter will ban people at the drop of a hat.
(In case you're wondering, no, I have never been banned on Twitter, but I also stopped using Twitter a few years ago because it seems to have been a quagmire of social justice advocacy, progressive politics, and self-promotion by third rate celebrities.)
and the funny thing about those is when I was in college, we fought tooth and nail to REMOVE those zones from campus, a university should be a free speech zone by default, the entire campus.
13 years later and the 1st graders when i was a senior are now fighting to enforce those same zones we fought so hard to tear down.
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Sure they are.
The real answer to the (stupid) OP question is economics. As much as liberals like to assume that they are the 'mainstream' the fact is that the country is much closer to 50/50.
Twitter, not stupid, recognizes this.
If they silence Trump (again, as you say, for whatever reason they want because they're private) a few things happen:
1) they lose half their customer base; I strongly suspect that this really wouldn't matter economically because a) they make no $ and b) I'm guessing that 99.9% of Trump voters don't 'tweet' as a lifestyle-communication thing; and
2) he gets a bully pulpit and even more press as it 'looks' like the establishment is trying to censor him; and
3) suddenly Twitter would be seen to be taking sides. For a purported neutral third party carrier of messages, they would be taking the stance that they ARE now responsible for the messages they carry - that would impose HUGE liability on them, not to mention opening a massive can of worms in terms of potential litigation regarding their common-carrier stance.
-Styopa
Over a broad enough time span that is true -- the right has wished to stifle communist and anti-religious speech, etc. They also, in relatively greater proportion, support blurring nudity and beeping out a handful of words broadcast on public channels.
But realistically censorship, particularly of ideas, is now a weapon sought and wielded by the cultural left. That may largely be a practical consideration -- they have predominant influence over media and public education and so are the ones who benefit most from claiming the right to stamp out minority views. However, it remains they are the ones most likely to tell you that you can't publish an editorial in the college paper because it is insensitive, that you should be fired from your job and stripped of your recognition because of something you said, that you be disinvited from speaking because your views are not in line with those they feel comfortable with.
The left should be conscious of this and attempt to fix it, for the general good, because some day the pendulum will swing the other way again, and to avoid pushing out their civil libertarians.
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
So let him dig his own grave via Twitter. If you want the world to see how unviable a candidate he is, why censor him?
Because they are afraid that Trump actually represents a majority of Americans.
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.