Slashdot Mirror
Why Twitter Hasn't Banned President Trump (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Amid vocal calls for the company to act, Twitter today offered its first explanation for why it hasn't banned President Donald Trump -- without ever saying the man's name. "Elected world leaders play a critical role in that conversation because of their outsized impact on our society," the company said in a blog post. "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate. It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions." In its blog post, Twitter reiterated its previous statement that all accounts still must follow the company's rules. The statement seemed to leave open the possibility that it might one day take action against Trump's account, or the accounts of other world leaders who might use the platform to incite violence or otherwise break its rules. "We review Tweets by leaders within the political context that defines them, and enforce our rules accordingly," it said. In response to the claims that Twitter doesn't ban President Trump because he draws attention -- and ad revenue -- to the company, Twitter said: "No one person's account drives Twitter's growth, or influences these decisions. We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind."
Like the GOP lately
He just keeps fucking winning.
what's crazy isn't that they don't block him, what's crazy is that the things he says have gotten so out there they have to apologize for not blocking him.
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Trump's the only reason I'm on Twitter.
Of course its all about ad-revenue and attention. While technically they are correct, that it takes more than one person to drive a conversation; in this case it's one person on a bully pulpit shouting to his people.
--
"This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period" - Sean Spicer
Are you that fucking stupid?
I understand a lot of people don't like him but its not like he makes random posts with the n word or anything like that.
Several presidents with Twitter handles have shown their ability to incite violence like the world has never seen before. No one called for their Twitter accounts to be sanctioned. This is a dumb article on its surface and as you dig deeper it gets dumber.
Twitter rejects its own rules. The Twitler in Chief is the best advertisement they could have. They'd never shut him down, he's making them millions. Money trumps contracts or ethics.
Learn to love Alaska
you have to be intolerant of intolerance in order to be tolerant.
all his tweets are mean and full of hate speech and anti-immigrant and pro-KKK racist trash. HE SHOULD BE BANNED FOREVER FROM TWITTER
Several presidents with Twitter handles have shown their ability to incite violence like the world has never seen before. No one called for their Twitter accounts to be sanctioned. This is a dumb article on its surface and as you dig deeper it gets dumber.
Please explain. I don't recall any other presidents threatening nuclear hellfire via Twitter.
I believe it is very important to expose the jackass for what he is and not to hide him. Hiding Trump's mutterings would be far more dangerous to our democracy than anything he tweets.
Funny, the person "scoring" comments clearly has TDS. Stop this political BS. Slashdot us pushing it. I stopped reading Ars because they couldnt help posting their garbage opinions, now /. is going the same direction.
Why didn't twitter block SWauTistic, that guy who was bragging about swatting people and sending out bomb threats. He was publicly taking credit for shutting down events on his twitter feed, up until the point when he got someone killed with one of his fake hostage situations.
Why is twitter, a publicly traded company primarily preoccupied with political speech?
People are getting tired of twitter's extremely biased censorship.
Gab.ai is a real alternative. Trump has over 40 million followers. Twitter is already hurting.
If Trump leaves, how many people will follow Trump over to Gab.ai?
If Trump weren't on Twitter all the time, they would have gone out of business long ago. They are getting tons of free advertising from him.
I hope you are trolling. I would hate to think anybody could be that ignorant.
The internet is not your safe space to aid in only your form of expression or fitting of ideals.
These people complaining for it to be as such are truly the most annoying types there ever could be on the internet.
Block twitter if what anyone says bothers you so damn much.
No one cares for your feelings taking a form of oppression to silence others.
If the President does it, it's not against Twitter's rules. By definition.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Maybe they figure the best way to keep him from getting reelected is to let him keep talking. Were they pro-Trump, they might be like his staff and try to keep him from talking (see 60 minutes interview).
Because he has no filter so he exposes what crookery the system really is: being ruled by others is the problem. If Hilary had been President it would have taken a long time to realize that because she is way too cunning.
He's 100% correct on the facts.
There is Donald J. Trump's personal account, and then the POTUS account.
Ban Trump's personal account, and force him to use the POTUS account.
[End Of Line]
No, Trump is a crook, not a traitor, and a crook is worse 99% of the time. Quit tilting at the Russia windmills and slay the actual dragons of corruption in this country. But of course, the establishment doesn't want to do that, because they are crooks as well, and don't want to risk exposing themselves. Smarter crooks, but crooks nonetheless.
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Well isn't that just doubleplusgood?
Debate is a form of harassment. Do not question my truth.
They would lose millions of users overnight and their growth potential would go right into the toilet. This is a company that has never made a profit but survives on the promise of future profits.
Twitter would be as relevant as Steve Bannon this time next year if they banned Trump.
Don't play speech police. Yes, private property and all, but it's a statement of fact that your customers don't take too kindly to a platform that promises a public forum (speech) but with an asterisk. You don't look too good censoring one side but not the other already. You look worse when you give people in power a pass that ordinary users don't get. No way out of this one. Either complete freedom or complete lock-down.
"We hate Trump and everything about him (especially the non-leftist stuff), but we're bleeding cash and need the eyeballs he brings."
This policy does not apply to military or government entities.
https://blog.twitter.com/offic...
In GOD we trust, all others we monitor.
A crook wants only to steal for himself.
A foreign hostile adversary wants only to harm our country.
A traitor harms our country on behalf of the hostile foreign adversary which controls his actions, as Russia controls Trump.
Donald Trump is a traitor and a thief, but his treason is more harmful than his thefts. Russia finances Trump's entire business and family so in many ways his thefts are paid for by his catastrophically obvious treason.
Twitter, the thing that never was and never will be.
I got a sense of what twitter is about when Katrashians started using it and it went from there to directly to the trash bin.
Good morning, Comrade Wang! How's the weather in Beijing?
By what criteria do you say he's not a traitor, the fact that he panders to Americana via populism? Pfft. He's a fucking TRAITOR. Wittingly or not, he is.
Trump would only go to gab.ai if he was banned from twitter and literally could NOT get back on, and if minds was somehow not available. And if he didn't make do with his facebook or instagram.
Gab ended up with all the neonazi types that twitter has been removing, a side effect of believing in free speech when your main competitor does not: you end up with whatever speech your competitor has banned, and not much else. This means that, without exception, he would be called a neonazi supporter again. I'm not confident that that matters all that much, because we keep hearing that same shrill refrain over and over, but.. still.
Exactly the kind of bullshit article I've come to expect from The Verge, as they continue to push far-left clickbait in a desperate attempt to remain relevant. They're approaching the level of BuzzFeed at this point. What's incredible is that anyone continues to pay attention to the ham-fisted Trump condemnations that are now the bread and butter of these publications, and apparently the only kind of article they're capable to producing. Online journalism has become so lazy it's almost unbelievable.
Although Twitter's PR department raises several thought-provoking, manufactured points, there is a simpler reason evident to all: because Trump is the most powerful man on the world and there's every reason to believe that he'd damage or destroy Twitter if provoked.
"You should never doubt what nobody is sure about." -- Willy Wonka
(answered)
Of course you wish it were so, thanks for making GP's point again.
You and the rest want to deny everyone you disagree with any platform to speak, don't give us this hypocritical BS. We've seen your playbook and the rules in it only apply to other people. We know about the heckler's veto and we're not buying this crap. You don't give a single real damn about anything but having power.
If you can't take disagreement, then we're just going to disagree even louder until you grow up or get lost.
..well, that would be like closing the barn door after trump has already destroyed humanity with a thermonuclear war.
You can argue a lot about what Trump says, but it is still foolish to believe that it serves the goal of a transparent republic to silence anyone, espececially the guy the runs 1/3 of the Federal government and the worldâ(TM)s most powerful military. If he talks shit, let him. If he makes an ass out himself, so be it. Are you really so naive as to think that it serves any purpose to keep those tendencies bottled up or limit the outlets for them?
Hostile foreign countries don't matter that much anymore, at least outside of threatening nuclear conflicts, and the Clintonites are willing to push us into nuclear war with Russia instead of admitting that they ran a shit campaign. Hostile corporations are a far bigger problem, be they foreign or domestic, and are a far bigger problem even regarding Trump.
Russia doesn't control Trump. Trump doesn't even control Trump. Russia did not want Trump. Nobody wants Trump, not even Trump. Russia wanted NOT-Clinton, and they had quite a few legitimate reasons for it.
Pull your head out of your ignorant goddamn ass. You idiots, who can't realize that the organizational nature of political power has fundamentally changed, are so caught up in your nationalism bullshit that you whine about Russia ties when the CEO of EXXON-GODDAMN-MOBIL is touted as a Russian agent instead of an oil baron, while Trump assuages his detractors' concerns just a bit by arming the anti-Russian neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
I believe that Trump should face the death penalty. I think that most of his administration should as well, as well as the majority of congress. But I'm not dumb enough to not realize that the Russia talk has always been a distraction from the real issues that created Trump in the first place.
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Just an example of how wrong you are...
Vladimir Putin awarded Rex Tillerson the Russian Order of Friendship for an oil deal in Russia.
So you say no Russian ties.
Hmm.. who do I believe - you who are covering for Russian-owned traitors or Vladimir Putin who awarded Rex Tillerson the Russian order of Friendship?
Just go on shift, Ivan?
Yes we protect Moscow Donald for Comrade Putin, yes?
Because he cares about MONEY and POWER, not nationality, just like everyone in politics. Plus, he has to actually have a pro-Russia stance that is against US interests in order to be a traitor. Instead, he's come closer to starting WWIII with Russia by bombing Syria, just so Brian Williams will jerk him off on air.
I believe Trump should be executed. I also believe that the Russian meddling bullshit is just a red herring.
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Once again suspicions are confirmed by official denial.
"We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind"
Now with free biolerplate bullshit
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Banning Trump from twitter will have no impact on him. He can release the same vitriol from the whitehouse website or some right-wing twitter equivalent website and have more deniability. People will see what he says because he is the president â" he will gather the same amountnof attention.
Twitter needs Trump, Trump doesnâ(TM)t need twitter.
Those aren't murder, which is what the GP was obviously referring to. Crimes are tried in a court of law and the death penalty is handed out by a jury and changing which classes of crime the death penalty applies to is a legal debate, not a death threat. People at the event understood him to be saying that the NRA members are reliable voters, not that they should go out and kill judges.
But if you want to talk about death threats, why not look at the congressional baseball games where people go to shoot Republicans? Or that assault on Ron Paul which I've seen people defending as it's apparently "okay to punch Nazis" where apparently everyone you hate is a Nazi now. But it's not like anyone on the Left apparently cares about racist anti-semitism when they're sharing all the stories in CNN, WaPo, HuffPo, etc. trying to say that Martin Wishnatsky is no longer a Jew, despite being born & raised Jewish. If not following the tenets of Judaism makes someone no longer ethnically Jewish and unable to call themselves a "Jew" then I wonder just how many people truly have that right. At the very least, that logic excludes each and every atheist who is ethnically Jewish.
These social media companies invite the public at large to participate in discussions, then start banning any discussion they don't like. This might have been okay when there were dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller forums and such (Delphi, USENET, and others). But social media has concentrated into ever smaller number of hands (vid.me failed, the nearest competitor to YouTube is Twitch and that doesn't store videos long term).
So these companies should be reasonable regulated. A user can only lose their account if if they violate copyright, post shocking/pornographic material, or violate US criminal law (stalking/harassing and such that court orders are given out). A user should not be banned for merely expressing an unpopular opinion.
I'm not saying there are no Russian ties to Tillerson. He's an oil baron. Russia has oil. There are going to be ties.
The point is that we should be concerned over his very clear ties to the oil industry, instead of trying to paint a stupid Russia narrative that is going to inherently apply to an oil baron.
Remember when we used to bitch during the Bush years about how oil was driving our foreign policy? Now, it's as much literally true as can be possible, outside of nominating a 55-gallon oil drum. But do I EVER hear talk about that? No, just the Russia bullshit.
Again, I want Donald Trump to be executed. I am not an apologist, I'm just against idiocy and the clearly manufactured consent behind this narrative.
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Because treason is worse than greed.
The state department has been hobbled by Trump and Putin, and is at a very diminished state with far fewer diplomats and diminished diplomacy worldwide which gives Russia a huge advantage.
Know why you never hear about that? Because everyone wants to ignore Russia and Treason as Putin and Trump tie the hands of our state department and let Russia foreign policy take precedence all over the world. This is deliberate treason, and it's destroying our country. Open your eyes.
Donald Trump threatens nuclear war on Twitter in order to distract from his obvious treason.
Trump threatens nuclear war...with words...which were mocking a tinpot dictator. That same dictator on the other hand who's country has kidnapped women from S.Korea and Japan and pressed them into harems for the military and senior officials of the government. That has fired missiles over Japan, and has Japan on edge enough that not only are they considering a full or partial rewrite of article 9 - that's the section that says they can't have a pro-active military, only self-defense. That they're also considering going nuclear as well, and people are supportive of it. But Trump's the problem...
Om, nomnomnom...
I think you are crazy for posting things like your last sentence. I would never do that, 'anonymously' or not.
The thing is you don't need for Trump to meet such an end, as if the legal process just plays out he will spend the rest of his life in prison for crimes in support of his treason.
And puh-leaze he got permission for his Syrian bomb dropping photo op from Putin who also approved Trump Tower Moscow.
Their userbase. Start reporting anyone who reports am American expressing their right to free speech to DHS and other assorted agencies for attempted treason or as foreign agents attempting to usurp the most sacred American right, whichever is applicable to the individual. The one fuckup the founding fathers made was not to require a minimum of execution of the person and immediate family members for anyone attempting to silence another person.
Decades ago, before he got into politics, I studied Trump quite a bit. I read all his books, which explained his thinking although ghost writers wrote the words. I've paid more attention since he started wading into politics and making some outrageous statements. He's not that complicated and his major ideas have been written about extensively.
When he makes public statements, keep in mind he LOVES to get press, he craves publicity. Good press or bad press it doesn't much matter, he just wants to be in the news. Raising his profile both advances his business / agenda and simply feels good for him. There were 16 Republican candidates who were generally more classically qualified than him, yet he got all the attention, and that's a big part of what won him the presidency.
He also loves HUGE, and spectacular! People joke about him always saying everything is going to be "yuge", the biggest, the best ever, and that joke is because he actually does that. He builds hotels huge, with gold plated stuff everywhere. That's his personality. He loves the biggest, the best, going to extremes - and then emphasizing the "yuge" in his PR.
There are a few other things, but those two go a long way to understanding whatever Trump says publicly.
No, internal threats are almost always a bigger concern than external threats. His tax bill harms America more than not having enough ambassadors. And again, I WANT TRUMP TO BE EXECUTED. The competent Trump opponents focus on things that aren't Russia, because they are competent.
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If Russia 0wns our elections as they do now, it doesn't matter what you think should change because our vote is diminished or reversed by their continued hacks so we can't vote for change.
What the hell? Slashdot used to care about voting machines that don't have a paper trail and election hacking. What happened?! Now we've got people acting like Russian election hacking and Americans colluding with and on Russian payrolls are irrelevant?! Has the whole world gone crazy???
I don't know what your insane fantasy about getting rid of Trump is about, but I don't agree and wouldn't post that anywhere other than to get heat on my adversary. Very strange, and I don't trust you or that comment. What are you up to?
Oh, you mean he bombed an important ally of Russia, which was fighting ISIS, but warned the Russian troops because directly attacking Russian troops could immediately lead to WWIII? You are too fucking stupid to converse with if you are calling that treasonous.
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when the disagreement is 'Do we go to nuclear war with North Korea or not?'. There are some opinions that are completely, total, utterly, patently wrong. This is one of them. There are some opinions so abhorrent that when somebody expresses them you shout them down. There's no other sane response. You don't have to lock them up, but you don't give them a bloody podium; especially not for something as trivial as a little ad revenue.
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Uh, he called ahead and they moved the planes out of the way, and resumed airfield operations later that day.
Your laughable evidence of non-subservience to Russia was an obviously staged photo opp with Putin's full permission and a little theatrics on the side.
And Trump still does Putin's bidding and helps cover up his ongoing hacks and attacks on our elections.
Maybe it's because Russia didn't "hack the election," which slashdot should be able to understand. The voting machines are vulnerable, but they are too fragmented for any serious efforts to be reliable. The voters were all within the margin of error, and there is no evidence of voting machines being hacked.
What we do have evidence of from Russia is stuff that's happened in every election ever, as long as the tech has been around, with similar permutations happening with older tech. Standard operating procedure. And yes, standard operating procedure is creepy as hell, but that's not how Trump got elected. Trump got elected because Clinton shit the bed and ran on the status quo.
Now, if the concern trolls were actually worried about Russian interference, they'd make it tougher for Russia to accomplish their goals. One of the most consistently stated goal for Russian campaigns is to "undermine faith in our democracy." You are furthering that goal by spreading this propaganda, while you could counter that goal by throwing the party leaders in jail for corruption, and electing politicians that don't whore the public's resources out for their donors.
But there's no money in that, and the powerful people don't want it, so they ramble about a bunch of incoherent crap trying cover the fact that Trump didn't win, Clinton lost.
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when Trump threatened a sovereign nation with nuclear annihilation. Also, keeping in mind that NK is hold SK hostage. If we move then nukes or no nukes they'll pound SK into pulp. They've got more than enough conventional weapons to do that.
When you were in school the worse you could dish out were a few bloody noses. We can murder 75-100 million people. At this point the responsible thing for Twitter to do, no the _human_ thing to do would be to cut Trump off from his instant gratification. Make him go through press releases where he has time to calm down. This isn't a bloody game show. Millions of lives are on the line and nearly all of them are innocent lives. It's easy for you to throw stones because you don't live in a glass house. You're not staring down those barrels.
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Okay, how about the fact that he's arming (or at least planning to arm) neo-Nazis in the Ukraine to fight Russia?
You keep thinking that I'm naive, but my scenario is far scarier than your penny ante bullshit. I just don't believe the narrative that was crafted by the Clinton administration to hide their own Russian ties, focusing instead on the real problems, which include nuclear war with North Korea.
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How about because a great many Americans like him as a leader! Outside of crazy Caliphornia and other leftist hives the vast majority of the USA don't mind him as a leader. Now Obama... there's a leader I can't stand (I'm still unable to afford that Obamacare mess).
For what does Trump deserve the death penalty? He hasn't done anything significant that even remotely deserves that. Do you want everyone dead who you don't agree with?
If any American president deserves the death penalty it's George W. Bush, together with his henchmen Dick Cheney and Donals Rumsveld. They were war criminals of a kind we hadn't had in a Western country since Hitler.
-- Cheers!
Mea Culpa:
Yes, I was paid through a Soros "NGO" to bring you this information.
Because he who is neither purchased and paraded by the RNC and DNC string-pullers is dangerous.
... everything they put forth should be a matter of public record, and it should be a high crime to delete/tamper with it at all.
There is no XUL, only WebExtensions...
Yeah, Bush, Obama, and Trump are all war criminals, as were most of their cabinets, and thus all deserve the death penalty.
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Let's test your mind reading skills. I'm thinking of a number. What number is it?
Here's a thing. Reading about a person does not make you a mind reader. Thinking about a person also does not make you a mind reader. No matter how convinced you are of this super power of yours.
Trump supporters are mostly methheads, opiodaholics and/or underachieving white males. Some are all three. Trump is mentally unfit for office. He and his snake oil selling family were in the campaign to enhance the brand. They never thought Trump would win. Trump himself was horrified to win. Youâ(TM)d have to have been a complete and total asscliwn to have voted for a candidate like that.
I'm Australian, so not tied to either of the USA's major political parties, but it doesn't take more than a brief skim of the main page to know that gab.ai is heavily republican leaning; the articles there currently are overtly focused on discrediting democrats. It's often quite complicated to dissect censorship or coverage and determine whether it's biased or not; our local public broadcaster was audited recently(ish) and turned out to be neutral, even though one side was utterly convinced it was extremely biased towards the other. If I were worried about a platform being biased I'd take a long hard look at my own views, and the views of those around me, to make sure I wasn't falling victim to something like the False Consensus Effect.
It's probably fairly neutral, overall.
Gab.ai is a social media network, it's not a news site. They also do not censor anyone. There is no republican lean. If you want to follow democrats on Gab.ai, you can do so, and your feed will be democrat leaning.
Unlike Twitter, they don't go out of their way to ban republicans and other right wing folk though.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
You don't need to be a mind-reader to gain an understanding of how someone thinks or what his or her personality is like from a large enough sample of that person's thoughts, e.g. writing.
For instance, your post was a large enough sample for me to understand that you're an asshole.
I always find it funny when people say a person reminding someone that there are consequences to actions, is labeled as threatening them since those consequences may be negative.
Look getting ur-old information and touting it as if it was recent is about as misinforming as it goes. Yes there were democrats clansmen, just like the slave party was democrats more than 150 years ago. But that does not mean it has ANYTHING to do with democrats of today ! In fact 1) Byrd denounced his KKK affiliation long ago. And since the 60ies there has been the "southern" strategy where the republican simply scooped up all the racist disenfranchised and abandoned by the democrats. Really, who is more to blame , those who supported racist 60 years ago but then saw the light and abandoned them with the civil right events, OR, those who decided to scoop those racist up and build a political force on their resentment to win up those southern state ? As for trump being considered racist before he ran for president, he was a BIRTHER. That is nuff said. Whoever modded you interesting is trolling.
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visit randi.org
Trump is a constant liar and is subservient to Vladimir Putin. I think you know what happens next.
Trump is a constant liar. He's pathologically incapable of a lot of basic functions. He also has a hard-on for strong-men types, which includes Putin. However, there is far more evidence that his policies are bad, harmful, and enrich the donor class, than of ties to Russia. Bannon called it already. The Trump administration will be taken down for financial crimes like money laundering instead of the Russia bullshit the Clintonites have been selling.
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It's not quite the same. A better comparison would be tweeting, "I'm thinking of the number six. Can you guess what number I'm thinking of?"
When someone tells you what they're thinking - when they communicate directly in their own words, it's best to believe them.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The twitter hinted that they can block anyone, and their status user does not bother
I believe in God, for the rest I cry in cash
And that is why I state above that when someone says that they can read minds, it says nothing about the person who's mind they say they can read.
The only relevant information in that statement is that said person has serious problems differentiating between their thoughts and reality.
Trump is going down for laundering Russian money!
Isn't that evidence of Trump's ties to Russia?
What is wrong with you?
Decades ago, before he got into politics, I studied Trump quite a bit. I read all his books, which explained his thinking although ghost writers wrote the words. I've paid more attention since he started wading into politics and making some outrageous statements. He's not that complicated and his major ideas have been written about extensively.
When he makes public statements, keep in mind he LOVES to get press, he craves publicity. Good press or bad press it doesn't much matter, he just wants to be in the news. Raising his profile both advances his business / agenda and simply feels good for him. There were 16 Republican candidates who were generally more classically qualified than him, yet he got all the attention, and that's a big part of what won him the presidency.
He also loves HUGE, and spectacular! People joke about him always saying everything is going to be "yuge", the biggest, the best ever, and that joke is because he actually does that. He builds hotels huge, with gold plated stuff everywhere. That's his personality. He loves the biggest, the best, going to extremes - and then emphasizing the "yuge" in his PR.
There are a few other things, but those two go a long way to understanding whatever Trump says publicly.
One of the other things being that Trump is a winner, Trump is always a winner, no matter what the facts say, no matter if the photographs show that the size of his inauguration crowd was pitiful, it was actually millions strong, the biggest in history because Trump is ALWAYS a winner. One of the easiest ways of getting on Trump's bad side seems to be to call this into question. As for what won him the presidency, it wasn't just that he got all the attention, it was that a large portion of the electorate judges candidates by charisma, entertainment value, looks and superficiality, not by competence and whether they think this person can actually deliver. Trump's public record on business competence is laughable, his habit of cheating his contractors out of their pay is a matter of public record, all this is easily discovered if you just bothered to run a simple web search and it cast severe doubt upon how likely he was to deliver what he promised but the electorate ignored that because Trump is 'charismatic', 'entertaining' and because he's a 'businessman'. I didn't even have to run a web search to find out the guy had bankrupted several Casinos, I already knew. What kind of business wunderkind bankrupts not just one Casino but a whole string of them? ... and why would anybody in their right mind think such a man is fit to lead their country?
You do realize that we're talking about Trump's account here, and not an imaginary one that you pulled out of your ass?
He makes a point of posting in a very specific way, which is clearly designed to push for certain agenda, and obfuscate his actual thoughts. To the point where many of the "oh we're smarter than him and we know we're thinking" types among the journalists keep getting it wrong with remarkable consistency.
What is "wrong with me" is that I see dipshits like you obsessed over seeing a blurry shadow of a drop of corruption, when there is an ocean of corruption in 8K available. If you think what Trump has done regarding Russia is treason, and you are intelligent enough to recognize that a corporation can be just as much as threat as a nation state, then you'd have to conclude that the rivers should be flowing with the blood of our domestic oligarchs. And I wouldn't disagree.
But you are obsessed with a fraction of the real issues, because you're too stupid to realize that they are pointing to the only sliver of corruption that doesn't instantly damn them as well. Trump goes down easy if you aren't invested in protecting the status quo, and the corruption within it that allowed Trump to win in the first place.
Damning only Trump is a much harder battle, and gets less accomplished, so there's no reason that our political goals should be as unambitious as yours.
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Please. Let's tear that scab clean off. I would love to live in that shitstorm.
Do it, bitches. Be who you are.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
You didn't answer my question.
-- Cheers!
So basically, Trump is Topper. Got it.
He plays the nose in the air crowd like a violin from hell and they just can't stop falling for the same shit over and over again
Obama did not invade and completely collapse a country without provocation. The Iraq invasion changed forever the role of the US in the world from defender to aggressor in the eyes of the world, even though all it did was make things worse for the US because it allowed Daesh to form and claim territory as well as mindshare, and caused Americans to go from respected to vilified by most of the world.
Obama was handed a horrific mess. Two theaters of combat that were losing, a recession, Republicans filibustering at every turn, and core US industries bankrupt. It is amazing he got anything done during his administration with all the sabotage and government shutdowns.
Trump? It actually is a shocking surprise that he hasn't engaged at least 2-3 countries already in war. Well, he has seven more years to go (yes, I said seven, as the Dems can't get over Hillary's loss, they nuked the only viable candidate they had, and Hillary is going to get re-nominated in 2020, ensuring a second Trump term. I'm already seeing Hillary 2020 bumper stickers.)
adherence to terms of service and acceptable use policies should not be "optional" for moronic, racist, narcissistic 'world leaders". twitter just doesn't have the balls to ban him... any mere citizen acting similarly would have been wiped off the service long ago. but trump brings constant media attention, which brings eyeballs, which translates to ad views and keeps twitter 'relevant' when it would otherwise have faded hard and fast.
What important information, exactly? It’s like broadcasting a murder-suicide in the afterschool special. Just get the mess cleaned up, and learn from it. I don't want to see the bullet holes, even though I know they are there.
Easiest path would be war crimes.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Obama expanded our wars into five other countries without an additional AUMF, plus he continued the existing wars. You can try and slice out an Obama exception, but it's more sensible to just have high standards. In fact, I'd argue that they should be higher. Any head of state starts a war, they die. If the war was necessary, then they should be willing to sacrifice themselves, and it really puts a damper on that whole military-industrial complex when war has a price for the leadership.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Or you could try not looking down on people just because they don't share your political views.
"No one person's account drives Twitter's growth..."
That's true, because Twitter has no growth. The number of users flattened out about two years ago - any growth since 2015 is minimal, and possibly faked. Meanwhile, Twitter continues to bleed money. Twitter is in a slow-motion death spiral, and desperately hoping that someone - anyone - will buy it.
Twitter doesn't dare block Trump's account, because they could instantly lose all Trump followers as users. Twitter currently has around 300 million users. Trump has 46 million followers. So they could lose more than 10% of their users in one blow, and that would be the beginning of the end.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Not many because Gab is still invite only and not indexed by search engines. You can't link to Gab posts, they are only visible to logged in users.
That won't charge any time soon either, due to the content they host and the lack of funding options because of it.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
This right here is IMHO the problem with society today. Not Trump. It's the asinine media which turns inanity into a superstar simply because they value flamboyance over substance. And the public which just eats this stuff up.
Trump being elected President is a symptom, not the problem. The proper reaction to someone being an idiot is to ignore them. Not to post a video of them on Facebook or YouTube just so you can comment "OMG can you believe this guy?" and be the first one to collect a million likes.
So tasteless and narcissistic, but lacking any actual business skills or leadership qualities beyond people hoping to get rich by association.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
So your saying he's Zaphod Beeblebrox ?
It's not a case of should Twitter be banning Trump. Trump is a government employee, and as such should have his communication controlled and reviewed. He represents a country and not some corporate entity, the stakes are a little higher now.
I remember "Dubya" Bush had to leave email behind, and they took Obama's Blackberry. They should definitely take this guys iPhone - just conditions of the job buddy!
Except in this case it's not just random footage of some obscure person that someone took the time to upload and call attention to it.
He is the POTUS, so for better or worse, things he says do matter, they can Haber consequences, and in fact already have. And he voluntarily, enthusiastically even, shares his largely unfiltered, stream of consciousness thoughts to at the very least his 50(?) million twitter followers.
So he is the one that brings attention to it, that screams for attention, because that is what he craves most. He seems to desperately want it all the time, that and always having to be the BEST at everything in the world, smartest guy in the world, BIGGEST button, most votes, etc, etc, etc.
This is how he's always been, it's plain to see going back decades for anyone that takes even a cursory look at his life. No one should be surprised he's this way as president. All those people assuring us he would suddenly "pivot" to a less angry, boisterous, raging ego maniac and be a completely different person were completely deluding themselves that he would do anything of the sort.
What war crimes?
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
If you do, you get your head kicked in. Just sayin'. Tech nerds should know it, having had themselves stuffed into wastebaskets, dipped into urinals and shat upon for years. You mess with the Alpha, you end up with your mouth full of feces. End of story.
The only people they need to ban are the people who want people banned, for not having their political views, using click-bait based ad hominem attacks.
What would be the next step for these left-wing extremists? Ban everyone liberal, for their views? Ban gays (oh wait, not them). Ban the communist party? Ban everyone who doesn't confirm to their echo chamber? I'm not even a Trump fan, but the real fascists and the real danger are the banning mob who want to silence people.
Anyone alive more than 2 years already knows that.
There is no republican lean. If you want to follow democrats on Gab.ai,
The site's icon is Pepe the fucking frog. The notion that this is an unbiased site where you can have a democrat leaning feed if you want it is laughable.
Digests like the above have ALWAYS been compiled and spread.
It's the kind of 'work' those turds with the poli-sci degrees can perform if they're lucky enough to not be working as a barrista or fry cook.
I'm also thoroughly convinced the reason the media focuses on him in the primary, aside from ratings, is they expected it would help the Dems win. No way he can win the general so let's fuck with the Rs in the process. They gambled and we all lost.
"Elected world leaders play a critical role in that conversation"
OK. I can get behind that. Elected leaders have a bigger say than just some scrub. Their influence is more impactful, so they should be given some leniency on what they say.
If their views are so important that they are allowed around the rules, why are they allowed to delete their tweets then? I don't mean 10 seconds after they clicked post and saw they made a massive spelling error. I mean why is Trump allowed to go back and retroactively delete every tweet he made praising people he backed but then lost their elections?
Fuck you Twitter. You are full of shit. The only reason you haven't blocked our retard in chief is that he keeps views coming to you for those sweet advertising dollars.
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Here's a thing. Reading about a person does not make you a mind reader. Thinking about a person also does not make you a mind reader. No matter how convinced you are of this super power of yours.
Meh, he just gets a Goebbels up his ass when he reads political/ideological opinions, ideas, and principles he doesn't like.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
It was 4.
When he makes public statements, keep in mind he LOVES to get press, he craves publicity. Good press or bad press it doesn't much matter, he just wants to be in the news.
Basically he likes ratings and doesn't care about polls:
* http://nationalpost.com/opinion/bret-stephens-trump-understands-ratings-not-polls-he-is-deliberately-keeping-us-entertained
So what you're saying is he's pro constitution and pro law enforcement.
And you think that's bad ?
Saying someone should be assassinated is not "pro constitution" nor is it "pro LE".
How did Trump's 1987 full page newspaper advertisement criticizing the U.S. government factor in your assessment of his motivations?
Aside, there were 16 Republican politicians vying for an executive position. Trump was the most experienced as an executive. The others were better qualified for political positions such as in the Department of State but not for the position of Chief Executive.
In all seriousness:
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When someone tells you what they're thinking - when they communicate directly in their own words, it's best to believe them.
This is Donald Trump, he was actually thinking of a Gothic B instead of a number.
This right here is IMHO the problem with society today.
Today? You do realize Sinclair Lewis wrote a book about this very thing around eighty years ago, right?
Self-serving duplicitous nonsense at its finest.
Requiem for the American Dream
Ha, it's actually 7!
Twitter is happy participating in a discussion meant to harass the president?
Trying to justify why you are not censoring the president is just evil. The only responsible thing Twitter should do is completely ignore any and all discussion.
Their policy of censorship is ludicrous.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
You get a book written by someone, Wolff, who has a long history of publishing lies and has admitted that his book contains inaccuracies a book the Washington Post said is mostly fluff and accusation with little to no substance, with that book quoting Bannon talking about things mostly already heard in the public forums about Bannon commenting on Trump Jr's meeting (that Bannon heard about from the news media) with some Russian lawyer who was let into the US by the Obama administration (Loretta Lynch -- who called for armed insurrection against Trump) where this lawyer was also known to meet with Hillary's hired henchmen both before and after the meeting with Trump Jr., and you consider Bannons comments anything other than superfluous?
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Bush yes, he's a war criminal. Obama yes, he killed innocent noncombatants when he could have avoided it. He killed Americans without due process without judicial oversight and did so more than once. He chose to kill over capture in countries that we are not even at war with.
But Trump? That's about as an extreme stretch as anyone could ever make.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
Derisive and abrasive
Curious how you have never pointed this out to the tens of thousands of negative comments about what Trump might be thinking. You only made your point once, against a poster that presented a neutral view.
That is necessary and sufficient inference to read your mind.
He very explicitly advocated war crimes during the campaign (kill their families). War crimes are standard operating procedure in the US, and the way to change that is to have high standards.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
How little you appear to have actually learned.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
If this were true the mainstream media wouldn't express such sophomoric surprise at what he says or does. Instead they screech with surprise and make claims that would have resulted in them being condemned to an insane asylum only half a century ago.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
It amazes me that people don't have the ability to understand that Trump is not mentally healthy.
You need to read the book by Sharyl Attkisson called "The Smear". After reading just the first chapter you'll understand who the real propagandist Goebberls is.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I want to agree for personal reactions, but then the topic might really be about media. How do you balance the notion against losing revenue to the other media publication that gets all the 'likes' (revenue)? Just give up, continue reporting (with journalistic integrity) less interesting stories just because the subject is flamboyant? I.e., slowly fire your staff and close shop.
And then, even personally, what do you do when you find yourself surrounded by people who start following a charlatan? Keep on ignoring it, allowing opinions to grow stronger about his 'excellence', unopposed?
There is no republican lean.
LOL, that's hilarious. Tell us another story. Give us your best fantasy.
Unlike Twitter, they don't go out of their way to ban republicans and other right wing folk though.
Ah, pushing the narrative, eh?
Just the sort of story that would make you popular on Gab.Ai.
Thanks man, that was quick. Now add a couple of orcs, maybe a ring, pad it out with some gratuitous sex scenes and you might have a best seller.
I think in the end, Twitter won't ban President Trump because Twitter very well feels the fallout from such a ban could be HUGELY negative for the company, and they know it.
I mean, the Left may celebrate short term, but in the longer term will wonder why Twitter fell into financial hard times and got taken over by another company (for example, Naver Corporation of South Korea, which already runs the LINE messaging service).
ban the President. And shouldn't. The idiot has the right to free speech like everyone else. And I love how he continues to sound like a retarded 12 year old!
The site's icon is Pepe the fucking frog. The notion that this is an unbiased site where you can have a democrat leaning feed if you want it is laughable.
Pepe is bi-partisan. Pepe is used by everyone. You just mean progressives don't like Pepe because Hillary Clinton hated pepe and the SPLC dubbed it a hate symbol out of sheer ignorance of Internet culture. Progressives are just the radical wing of the Democrats after all. I'm sure you're a much more sensible liberal, not someone who thinks a cartoon frog used in memes is a hate symbol.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Intetesting that they also havent denounced and banned accounts threatening violence/death on President or FCC chair, etc. Those are against their terms right?
Trump is always the problem. He's the reason we don't have unicorns or eternal bliss. He has an -R next to his name. He came from hell and follows the orders of a Satan with a heavy Russian accent.
Isn't it hard to walk with your nose stuck that far up?
People forget that Twitter was on the verge of dying in Oct 2016. They were desperately trying to find a sucker ... I mean buyer and were about 30 days from complete bankruptcy.
Then Trump happened.
So there ... that is why they won't ban him.
and I'm not the only one.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
so the most you have is "advocated".... over the top much?
He is their Clown In Office
If Big Pharma created something like AARP to disguise their agenda, that would be like the NRA.
It's the industry lobby group for the weapons industry, they just front that with an issue group. That is why they'll kill bills that have ZERO to do with gun rights simply because it's banning sales of military grade weapons to another country.
Terrorism is EXACTLY what the 2nd amendment is for! Government should fear it's citizens! That is the whole purpose!
The actual 2nd amendment could just be for militia and no individual gun rights. read it. they left it unclear. The federalist papers give clues as to intent although it's biased because if they had meant the kind of things you can pull from those papers the would have worded the amendment differently. Anyhow, the federalist papers and founders like Jefferson show terrorist threats were exactly the purpose. Jefferson used it in his campaigning as a threat of terrorism if his rights to run for office were tread upon, etc.
They do not say GUNS anywhere. they say ARMS. that is generic and broad. cannons and bombs existed back then and would be included. They wanted another revolution to be possible; which means tanks and anything modern is included. It all becomes pointless when nukes and robots get involved. The amendment is hopelessly out of date and needs to be revised to be realistic.
The founders were also not for large national standing armies.
Not that I'm going to argue for everything as if the founders were god-like infinitely wise old men. (Only a few were really smart... but most of them were smarter and wiser than the crooks we have in today.... I can not imagine a Ben Franklin type even giving a speech in congress today.)
it's all perspective. out in Europe, trump is the tinpot dictator! and don't give us crap about how he won an election. there are elections in iran too - I don't see you crying crocodile tears about their "democracy"
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
For example, we're talking about twitter in this thread.
That's why they'll never ban him, despite a lot of desperately hurt snowflakes.
-Styopa
I want you to contemplate the fact that you're asserting that Twitter "goes out of its way to ban republicans and other right wing folk" in a thread specifically about Twitter defending its decision to not address President Trump's transgressions against its Terms of Service.
It would be cool if Twitter was smart enough to extend the logic to all people. "Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate." This makes me think that Twiter believes in classism. At best this means they are pro-monarchy at worst this means that they agree with fascist ideology somewhat.
Does this mean Twitter will ban Trump as soon has his term is up?
Liberal Americans are amazingly stupid...
But hold him to the same standards as everyone else
Twitter was waffling and not in a good place till Trump started running for President and running his mouth on Twitter.
Asking why they donâ(TM)t ban him is like asking why the NFL doesnâ(TM)t ban TOM Brady.
So tasteless and narcissistic, but lacking any actual business skills or leadership qualities beyond people hoping to get rich by association.
He is more successful than you. What does that say about you?
You need to read the book by Sharyl Attkisson called "The Smear". After reading just the first chapter you'll understand who the real propagandist Goebberls is.
Oh, I'm quite aware that the Nazis learned the technique of propaganda from Woodrow Wilson and the marketing guys Edward Bernays and Walter Lippman that Wilson hired while POTUS that actually organized the principles together thus creating a political/ideological tool to influence groups of people.
Strat
Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
Trump Did Nothing Wrong
Political views turn into political action, which can and does disrupt or even ruin lives. Don't pretend politics is harmless.
We pretend that he didn't win the presidency, and basically everything.
I don't think Twitter should ban Trump. They should just force all his tweets to display in Comic Sans.
Interesting extrapolation from "don't look down on people who don't share you political views". Straight into power politics and violence.
I must say that I'm very intrigued at your insinuations of my omnipotence in communications.
You type "Ban Trump's personal account, and force him..."
Do you even READ and THINK ABOUT your own hatred and bile? You all seem to end up wanting to muzzle people, ban them, force them, silence them, and so forth and usually either because you HATE them or you HATE the things they believe.
The modern Leftist is as far from "classical liberal" as one can get.
People on the right read Orwell's "1984" as a cautionary tale; people on the left read it for inspiration and are all convinced they are double-plus good.
The site's icon is Pepe the fucking frog.
If you think a "cartoon frog" is such a big symbol of something, all you're doing is showing just how partisan you are and how much you absolutely have to believe the talking points that were presented to you. Because if you question it, then you're no longer part of the club are you?
Om, nomnomnom...
"Can't we drone this guy?" - Hillary Clinton, on bombing a sovereign embassy in the UK.
Om, nomnomnom...
"He's better than Kim Jong Un" is such a bad defense that it could only be used for Trump...
Does the truth hurt Trumpflake? Awww.
"He's better than Kim Jong Un" is such a bad defense that it could only be used for Trump...
Well your other option was "Can we drone this guy?" - Hillary Clinton, on the implication that she wanted to blow up the Ecuadorian Embassy, in the UK to kill one person who was making her look bad. That actually makes her just as bad as him, Trump on the other hand? Right...
Yeah, that basically makes most politicians better then Kim Jong Un. I realize this is an awfully low bar in the first place, but let's try to keep the stupid to a bare minimum.
Om, nomnomnom...
10.
No, it was 4.13
I'm glad somebody has the public interest in mind because it certainly isn't #45. How can anyone support such harmful legislation?
So people who are Trump supporters who are banned because they retweeted him have different privileges because they are not as famous and don't provide free advertising? Trump supporters have been banned because they retweeted Trump but Trump is special and doesn't have to follow the same rules since they don't get free advertising when the news publishes his tweets. Twitter keeps claiming that nobody is immune to their terms of service when this clearly shows that Trump doesn't need to comply with their terms of service but his supporters do have to follow their TOS.
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The proper reaction to someone being an idiot is to ignore them. Not to post a video of them on Facebook or YouTube just so you can comment "OMG can you believe this guy?" and be the first one to collect a million likes.
And yet, the media and the Left (but I repeat myself) fall for it... Every. Single. Time. They will continue to fall for it, every single time, as along as Trump remains in office, and probably beyond. Who's the idiot here? The troll or the people who allow themselves to be trolled time after time, year after year?
Honestly, as distasteful as I find the President's tweets, and as often as I cringe at them, I totally get why he does it, and am amazed as how well it works.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
See, you get it. I didn't vote forTrump in the primaries and I was furious when he won. But I voted for him in the general because the alternative was unimaginable. Since then, I've been pretty happy with what he's done.
You are describing exactly how I feel. The more spittle-sprayingly angry the Left and the media become, the more it makes me like Trump. Enemy of my enemy and all that, but mostly because they are falling for his trolling every single time. He's playing them like a fiddle and by saying ridiculous things, making them look even more ridiculous when they constantly lose their minds over it. "Acting Presidential" is so last century. Obama didn't do it either, but he always got a pass. It's a new world, and I don't like a lot of the rules, but Trump has mastered them.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Donald J. Trump - January 12, 2018: "Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said “take them out.” Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings - unfortunately, no trust!"