Twitters Says It Will Ban Trump If He Breaks Hate-Speech Rules (qz.com)
Twitter has made a serious effort as of late to limit hate speech on its social media site, especially after Election Day where "biased graffiti, assaults and other incidents have been reported in the news." The company now faces President-elect Donald Trump, who has used Twitter for the past 18 months as a megaphone for his views and rants, which many would consider as "hate speech." According to the American Bar Association, hate speech is "speech that offends, threatens, or insults groups, based on race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation, or other traits." Quartz reports: While Trump's deceptive tweets may not violate Twitter's rules against harassment, threats and "hateful conduct," Twitter is still keeping an eye on his account for more egregious offenses. This week, the company told Slate it would consider banning key government officials, even the president, if its rules against hate speech or other language were violated. "The Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies," a spokesperson wrote. Twitter confirmed with Quartz that everyone, including government officials, were subject to the policy: "The Twitter Rules apply to all accounts," a spokesman wrote. Trump may not have crossed that line yet, but he hasn't exactly refrained from making incendiary claims. Most recently, he claimed that Abdul Razak Ali Artan, who allegedly carried out an attack injuring 11 students at Ohio State University, "should not have been in our country." Artan was a legal permanent U.S. resident, whose family had fled Somalia for Pakistan in 2007. He arrived in the States in 2014.
Actually I agree with Trump with this one. This guy should not be in our country. He obviously hated it. So he should go live in a Muslim country, like Somalia or Pakistan. Love it or leave it. And stand the fuck up for the anthem too, you aren't being oppressed.
Nobody is talking about banning speech. Twitter is talking about banning users who violate their rules. That's it.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Being welcomed to a country you are not citizen of is not a human right. We can consider pros and cons to ourselves vs humanitarian benefits of admitting a particular immigrant of from a particular country where terrorism and other crime is more common than in US.
Refusing to have a rational discussion on this subject without accusations of hate and racism is how we got Trump.
How refreshing!
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
On the one hand, hate speech, censorship, and the limits of Presidential power are all very serious topics.
On the other hand, President Trump getting banned from Twitter and watching the resulting tantrum would be beyond hilarious.
I stole this Sig
If you expand "hate speech" to include "speech that offends groups" then so did EVERY OTHER politician (and most of their supporters).
In fact, doesn't Hillary calling Trump supporters "deplorables" fit this definition almost perfectly? I'm pretty sure Trump supporters are a group who were pretty fucking offended by that statement.
But something tells me only the right-wing politicians and supporters will get banned. Call it a crazy intuition.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It occurs to me that, while a company shouldn't necessarily advocate for open harassment of its users, it needs to apply the policy equally if it is to be taken seriously.
Take, for example, the radical feminist Clementine Ford. She has repeatedly engaged in blatant anti-male harassment and is known to then cry wolf when a man responds with anti-female harassment and had a man fired from his job for his comment. Yet, for some reason, Clementine Ford's account is still miraculously active. No matter what Trump said he did or didn't grab, this woman should be off Twitter permanently by that same policy.
This is a pattern that repeats over and over. As it is obvious that Twitter is engaging in selective enforcement, they are not only slowly alienating a substantial portion of their user base for the minority of vocal SJWs, they are threatening their own safe harbor provisions for anything else that goes on Twitter such as terrorist communication or other criminal activity. That translates to fewer users and significant financial risk for operating as they currently do.
The real question is: why are the shareholders not demanding Dorsey's resignation for these policies? Mentioning Trump is a complete non-sequitur and clickbait for Salon's liberal slant. More importantly, it indicates that they are defocused from the real goal of shareholder returns and preserving shareholder value. The tail can't wag the dog any more, and it has to belong to the same animal in any case. Either Twitter curates content consistently or they get out of that business and respond only to complaints of criminal and terrorist activity; otherwise, this half-way house will fall on itself.
Actually no, they're not that simple. You can read them here.
I reaffirm: nobody is banning speech. Twitter is banning people who break their rules of conduct on their forum.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Does a bakery, as a private company, have the right to say "No cakes that we don't like"?
Does a family-owned store, as a privately held corporation, have the right to say "We won't pay for medical services that we believe are morally equivalent to murder"?
Many Americans think the answer to those should be "yes" -- and if you say no to this, but yes to Twitter, then you should think very carefully about how much sense it makes to draw the line where you draw it.
Depending on New York State law, with which I'm not familiar, Donald Trump's restaurants may have the same requirement.
Nonsense. Restaurants provide general service. If they refused to host a special occasion or make some off-menu item, then it would be a fair comparison. But the bakery in the Oregon case did not refuse to sell any items for a gay wedding. They refused to sell custom-made items. It makes all the difference when discussing whether this was a religious coercion or not.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
No, Trump's followers (and a lot of others) complain that Twitter isn't honest about the rules they use. Also that a lot of Twitter's supporters are inconsistent in applying the values they claim to hold or as dishonest as Twitter.
Some people aren't even that subtle. For example, take Manveer Heir the openly racist developer at Bioware who makes no secret how much he hates all white people by broadcasting it all over Twitter. This is really the problem, they only consider it racism if it's hate speech directed at certain select groups.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Love it or leave it. And stand the fuck up for the anthem too, you aren't being oppressed.
"Love it or leave it" is what privileged fools say when they are actively sticking their fingers in their ears so they don't have to hear the truth from people who are being abused by our government. There are plenty of people who genuinely ARE being oppressed in this country. Sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes in very blatant ones. Ask any black person if they feel oppressed by the police. Ask a person with brown skin how easy it is to get a bank loan. Compare the number of unarmed minorities who get shot by police to the number of white people. Ask women how things are going with that equal pay for equal work.
I am a US Citizen because I was born here. I didn't ask to be born nor did I ask to be a citizen. Love isn't unconditional. The notion that I should automatically love the country if it is doing things to actively harm me or things I care about is just nonsense. There are lots of people who are oppressed. Just because YOU aren't being oppressed doesn't mean shit to someone who is. If they want to sit down to make a statement during the playing of the national anthem then they are doing EXACTLY what the first amendment is for. So is burning a flag. Free speech isn't about what is comfortable for you to hear. It is making a statement that tells what they think without harming anyone.