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?
Because that would be unimaginable CENSORSHIP?
You stupid leftist idiot.
Twitter could be destroyed, or at least heavily damaged, by the republican party if it took a side. Also, like it or not, Trump is the leading republican candidate.
...But if I was him, I'd give Trump all the rope he needs to hang himself with.
Free speech is free speech. Everyone else is free to ignore it. If a radical idea catches on, so fucking what. Twitter should not be shutting down Donald Trump and Lauren Weinstein should quit whining about it like free speech is some sort of threat.
--- We need more Ron Paul!
This also from the great thinker whose personal blog also got linked to for "Why I'm a Defender of YouTube"
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
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.
Deal with it. Just because you aren't voting for a person in a election doesn't mean every opinion of theirs must be silenced at all costs. Give them enough rope to hang themselves if you think someone is such a monster...
Just because you don't agree (or are insulted) with the man or his policies doesn't mean he should be censored. When he begins calling for the gruesome death of all people who don't agree with him (e.g. ISIL), then we will have something to talk about. The only reason this article has ANYTHING to do with Slashdot is cuz Twitter. Can we get back to technology stuffy, please?
The very asking of the headline question reeks of "freedom of speech as long as it's the right one".
People should be able to discern speech the agree with vs. speech they don't on their own after considering every opinion made.
Speech "carriers" have all the right to censor the speech in their media as they see fit (not being the government and all) but the very moment the prevent someone to speak their mind on their platform (no matter how radical they may sound) they forfeit their right to call themselves "a bastion of free speech" and become the same as every other news media: a place to broadcast the views of their owners and target audience, no more, no less.
In conclusion, every company have the right to pick and choose what they want to enable to be said on their property but as soon as they choose to censor they become yet another biased source just like every other else.
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
He who has the gold, makes the rules. And boy, does Trump have the gold.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Being a presidential candidate doesn't grant you the right to violate terms of service. Of course, it does mean people are more likely to let it slide. But it does make a mockery of their "no hate speech" nonsense.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Short version: Why should they?
Long version: I find him reprehensible, and find his positions stupid and indefensible, because I'm, I guess, a liberal or leftie or maybe even progressive. According to a number of posts here, I, as a liberal, am supposed to want Trump to be silenced. I do not. Political candidates, no matter how much I don't like them, get, and should get, a podium. Freedom of the news and freedom of speech are more sacred than my desire not to be offended or annoyed.
Amplifying that, I suspect that the desire to not have to be exposed to the likes of DT is more dangerous than DT itself. I am very worried by people on whatever side of whatever issue, who wish to simply silence their opposition. Both sides of an issue frequently have a view the other side should listen to carefully, and not dismiss casually.
Don't step on the baby.
The headline presumes a lot of things.
Read the actually Twitter account and it's relatively bland, in pages of tweets I couldn't see anything that would cause an account from anyone to be suspended.
Its amazing how furious trump makes people, and sad how they themselves must lie to try and shut down someone they disagree with.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Being a candidate gives you the right to email above-top-secret information in the clear and not immediately go to prison... why wouldn't it allow you to post "supposedly" bad stuff on twitter?
If the new owners are listening, this is exactly the sort of story that doesn't belong on Slashdot. The technical angle (Twitter?) is minimal, the political content is strong, and most of the commenters have big ugly political axes to grind.
Hopefully this is an aberration. If you just want to post clickbait and stir up outrage, this isn't the site for me.
If, on the other hand, you wanted to talk about the algorithm Twitter uses, or the resources and methods required to enforce Twitter policies, you might have a nerdish angle.
But to ask readers whether or not they approve of Trump on Twitter is trolling, and makes me wonder about your "new" direction.
Can we stop calling opposing political opinions "trolling" and "hate speech"?
The word has lost all meaning at this point.
Unless people actually think Trump is doing what he is doing for the lulz and purely to bother people.
The first amendment protects free speech, it is not itself free speech. Free speech is an idea we think is so valuable that we wrote a law to protect it.
Calling Trump a fascist and demanding he not be permitted to speak is such delightful irony that I pray the writer did it on purpose. Or, they are missing the point of liberal, modern civilization so badly that they should go back to school. And, no, I don't approve of Donald Trump. He can go hump an a-bomb for all I care.
I live in Poland. I use Slashdot for a long time.
I remember first Obama campaign and pathetic political propaganda on Digg. Not just bad, it was really pathetic.
Looks like you will never learn, now there is a huge anti-Trump propaganda on Slashdot.
Twitter should shut down his account? What about facebook? Google?
Why this community is so brainwashed?
Fuck building a wall. Just put high powered lasers that will incinerate anything that crosses the line. As for illegals already in the country, we should send SWAT teams to raid to their homes.
Also, we should require valid legal resident documentation in order to rent a home.
Twitter gets to decide how they like to enforce their policies, and shutting down honest discussion and posting of truth on a political or social issue by someone, candidate or not, would be shameful, and drive people away from Twitter.
Nobody has shown proof of a Twitter ToS violation by Trump on Twitter.
The guy's team posted some Tweets which became controversial; However, all the tweats claimed to be "Racist" appear to not be racist, unless you have a colored interpretation driven by a politically biased agenda against Trump.
Anti-trump bloggers describing Trump's postings as ToS violations are "Seeing what they want to see".
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.
Because a guy who is going out of his way to show his complete contempt for everything from the Bill of Rights to basic human decency will just make things so keen.
What do you suppose would happen if someone like Trump were elected President? Do you think the Supreme Court and Congress would just take a holiday and let him play out his Fascist dictator fantasies? His time in the White House would be horrible for everyone involved. 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. The Oval Office would resemble Nixon on steroids, as it would be the first time in over forty years that a POTUS had almost no friends on the Hill. About the only place there would be activity would be the Federal Courts and SCOTUS as Congress and everyone else that Trump screws takes his Administration to court, likely ending in impeachment for any of a dozen flagrant, even proud high crimes and misdemeanors.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
to do just that. Every time he says something nutso his poll numbers go up. Thing is, white working class America knows something is wrong, but they don't know what to do about it. They don't believe in the income inequality fairy, but they do know that they're losing ground. Their kids aren't going to college, or if they are they leave a public university with $60k in debt. They haven't seen a raise in years that wasn't immediately eaten up by price increases.
What they want and need is the Nordic Model. But they haven't got a chance. Most of these guys spend 2 hours a day commuting to their shitty jobs listening to Rush. They spent their childhood being told that if you work hard and play by the rules and don't get ahead it's your fault. Heck, when the millennials started complaining about the 60 hour work weeks with no benefits or job security or even food security they scoffed at them. They don't want help. They were told they could make it on their own. The keep getting told this by billionaires and their media outlets. I've tried reasoning with them but it's no go. They've got an answer for every point I make spoon fed to them by those same billionaires.
But they still know something's wrong. Trumps the only man they got.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
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.
I'm not saying yes, I'm not saying no. Check her posting history and have a bloody good laugh.
Ummm, I mean check her posting history and make your own mind up. Yes, that.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
This is the kind of story that belongs elsewhere. Hey, new owners, let's keep /. tech focused.
You mean convict. Presidents removed from office via impeachment are not sent to jail.
Twitter is certainly obligated to apply the rules that they do have in an evenhanded manner.
"Obligated?" Is this the very first case of self-interested hypocrisy you've ever encountered?
In grown-up land, individuals (and corporate individuals, naturally) don't have to enforce their rules. Governments can be sued to act, but individuals don't have such an affirmative obligation; suits are filed the other way; that is, if Trump felt he was being censored unfairly, he might have a course of action, but YOU do not have such a remedy when YOU want a term-of-service applied to someone else.
Populus vult decipi, ergo decipiatur...
"Force shits upon Reason's back." - Poor Richard's Almanac
Can you give an example of this "hate speech"? There is a difference between "hate speech" and "I don't like what I just heard" or "he just made (me / group xyz) take a hard look at themselves"
She writes a vague blog post that doesn't give a single actual example of a tweet that someone should be banned for, and it makes a slashdot headline... should we thank the new owners? How about this: most of that kind of content is subjective, which means twitter can do whatever it wants. For the record, I like neither twitter nor Trump, but this kind of whining, no matter which side it comes from, is very unbecoming.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
The "establishment" (who make up the majority of both Houses) Republicans are not exactly in his corner. I doubt they'll play along with anything that they think would be detrimental to their party, and especially their own jobs when mid-term elections come around.
No, he was impeached by the House. He was then acquitted rather than convicted by the Senate.
The impeachment was completely successful, else the Senate would never have weighed in.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Trump draws the dots and lets his supporters connect them.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Why does Lauren Weinstein want to shut down what is clearly political speech? You may find it hateful, vulgar, inspiring, whatever, but it is coming from someone running for office.
Personally, I wish that Twitter didn't exist at all.
he wants to throw out all the Muslims.
Not even a Trump supporter, but [CITATION NEEDED].
He said he wants to put a temporary ban on middle-eastern immigrants, not "Throw out all the Muslims".
This is something that our current administration already did back in 2011 for 6 months:
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/...
As a result of the Kentucky case, the State Department stopped processing Iraq refugees for six months in 2011, federal officials told ABC News
You're pretty optimistic.
Suppose Trump's elected. The House is going to be Republican no matter what -- and any surge of right-wing support sufficient to elect Trump is likely to swing down-ticket races rightward too, so you could very well see the Senate go Republican too.
Let's walk through a more realistic scenario:
Who appoints new justices to the Supreme Court? Oh, right, El Presidente. The sitting Justices are aged 61, 79, 79, 67, 82 (!), 77, 65, 61, and 55. Wanna add four years to those numbers and bet there are no vacancies?
Why is this? As a Congressman, my job is to get re-elected. If my party's Presidential candidate wants to build the New Berlin Wall or an English Language Reeducation Camp (or a DeMuslification Faith-Based Organization), it'd be counterproductive to do anything else for a Republican Congressman to do anything other than support it enthusiastically. Otherwise I get primaried out and replaced in the midterms with someone who will support it.
And the third Administration of the past Three in which a POTUS has complete unfettered access via the intelligence community to the dossiers of all his political opponents. The difference is that neither Bush II nor Obama appear to have seriously abused this power. (Thanks, Mr. Snowden! If they had, the journalists in posession of your data dump would have found it and blown the whistle by now!)
You mean, "the Federal Courts, where the Attorneys were replaced by party loyalists as is customary for every administration, a Supreme Court in which at least one, and possibly three or four, Justices have been replaced by Trump nominees and confirmed by a narrow-majority Republican Senate, and a Congress full of people who would never impeach a President from their own party under any circumstances, on pain of being primaried out of office before the midterms."
Do I think Trump's electable? No. Do I think he should be banninated from Twitter? Hell, no.
Are the Legislative and Judicial branches capable of stopping a rogue Executive? Absolutely capable of doing so, every day since some time after the close of the Civil War until the present and straight on through January 21st, 2017.
Do I think, that the specific case of a Trump-appointed Judiciary and a Republican Legislature will be willing to stop him in, say, September 2018? September 2020? Regrettably, I do not. And that's the $10 trillion dollar gamble.
... and remain a viable place for people to voice their ideas.
If Twitter becomes a progressive hug box then that's all it will be... and its value as a company will be very low.
This is a mistake a lot of social media outlets are making recently. They think "oh we want to get rid of all the things that look icky to some people"... the problem is that "the internet sees censorship as damage and routes around it." which means if twitter censors people... they will appear to large portions of the user base as "damaged"... and they will be bypassed.
Twitter cannot ban something like trump because he's clearly very popular with a large number of people.
What is more, Twitter is letting ISIS say what they want... how crazy do you have to be to think Trump should be censored but ISIS shouldn't?
Nutty people.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Twitter wisely doesn't interfere with (political) speech that is basically bombastic, certainly crude, definitely dumb, mostly misleading, fully fearmongering, and which might reasonably be termed racist. And it shouldn't. This speech is not illegal and it's far too lucrative for Twitter to have it. The whole country is talking about it and many of them are using Twitter to respond. Great! Free publicity! Increase in user volume! Societal relevance!
I (and many others) consider what mr. Trump says poisonous rubbish, but we support his right to speak freely. There is quite enough censorship going on already.
Freedom of speech often isn't nice, fuddy-duddy, or conducive to "cosmic harmony". And neither is it meant to be. It is however the cornerstone of the battle of words that's known as public debate. Freedom of speech is meaningless when there is harmony. Its protection is most needed when your opponents are screaming with rage, foaming at the mouth, and are brandishing sticks, knives, and guns in response to spoken and written words.
Of course freedom of speech can be abused, and Words aren't harmless. Communism came to power because of Words. National-socialism was voted into power ... because of Words. Words that squarely tapped into an undercurrent of rage and inflamed people.
However, we have certain rules about where to draw the line. Not mob-rule. Rules like the rule against Libel for instance. Incitement to riot. Calling for violence against US citizens. And, hehehe, that most serious of crimes: copyright infringement. Of course that leaves sneaky people a tremendous amount of freedom and plenty of opportunity to do damage.
Like trumpeting that they are _not_ calling someone a Bimbo ... because that would not be "politically correct" (ok, no other sources of reticence seem to apply, like common decency for example, but this one is a show-stopper apparently). By ranting that someone had blood coming out of her "wherever" ... when when one is inconveniently confronted with one's own words (As in a childisch "nyer nyer ... never said anything that tripped a legal rule but sure got the message across didn't I ?"). By ranting about seeing certain ethnic groups partying and revelling in the destruction of the Twin Towers (something which amazingly no-one else saw). Like advocating deliberate indiscriminate bombing of large numbers of civilians to show (Soviet style) toughness (and arguably giving the targets sufficient reason to retaliate with terrorist attacks here in return). Like proposing 40% tariffs on imports (probably wrecking the US economy, that of most of the world, triggering large-scale instabilities, and perhaps even a big war). And serving ISIS with the very thing it so desperately wants: a chance to trigger a global conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. No worries. All covered by Freedom of Speech.
Even so, whether any lines are crossed should be determined in a court of law. Not by mob-rule. Of course no system is perfect, but we have traditionally opted for a very heavy burden of proof in any legal proceedings against freedom of speech. And rightly so I feel.
Do you think the Supreme Court and Congress would just take a holiday and let him play out his Fascist dictator fantasies?
I think we've Godwined this far enough. I think the US Supreme Court would do the same thing they did for Obama when he played out his Fascist dictator fantasies.
The Oval Office would resemble Nixon on steroids, as it would be the first time in over forty years that a POTUS had almost no friends on the Hill. About the only place there would be activity would be the Federal Courts and SCOTUS as Congress and everyone else that Trump screws takes his Administration to court, likely ending in impeachment for any of a dozen flagrant, even proud high crimes and misdemeanors.
This is a huge thing that is missed. If Trump gets elected, it'll probably be the best opportunity this century to curb the power of the US Presidency.
So, the same person who called Trump a fascist last week is trying to get a mob together to censor him? Yeah.
As a Congressman, my job is to get re-elected.
and this is exactly the WRONG reason to be a congressman. I think if that is ones attitude (not that i disagree with you on how things actually are) they should be disqualified from office
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
I hate Donal Trump but I also have a brain. Saying "some Mexicans crossing the border illegally are felons and rapists" is not racist, it's true and an actual political problem. What Democrats (and idiots) HEAR is "all Mexicans are rapists and felons." It's not like he's tweeting "white power" or something blatantly racist.