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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
Amazing how for some people, their only desire is to silence those they disagree with.
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.
I hope you are trolling.
The only KKK friendlies in the government have all been democrats. Robert Byrd was a klansman.
The democrats and the KKK were one and the same until the KKK was effectively dismantled in the 1960s.
Trump has never supported any racist group. And Trump was never considered racist before he ran for president.
Why is it racist to defend our borders against illegal immigration? Mexico certainly defends their borders. Is Mexico racist?
I hope you are trolling. I would hate to think anybody could be that ignorant.
How many people on twitter have threatened to kill Trump? Should they all be banned?
BTW: when has Trump ever threatened to kill anybody? Be specific.
Leftism is based exclusively on stupidity and groupthink.
Oh yeah, right. Like if the POTUS can't post on Twitter he'll have no way to communicate with the nation. So taking away his Twitter account would "silence" Donald Trump.
Christ, I only wish it were so.
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.
So what you're saying is he's pro constitution and pro law enforcement. And you think that's bad ?
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
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.
Far left and far right as two sides of the same coin here. Most reasonable leftists on the other hand share the opinion of the reasonable right wingers. Let the man speak and let everyone make up their own mind what he says.
That's not a Trump problem, that's a media problem. More so that media are chasing that "always first" "always sweet-sweet ad revenue" and so on. Welcome to the shitshow that always-on 24hr news media has created, and welcome to the ever increasing irrelevance that the news media has helped create. It also doesn't help that there is very low public trust of the media in general, or that when people point out that they have indeed fucked up, engaged in unethical practices, or whatever else. The media's response is to screech "IT'S NOT US! IT'S YOU!" Queue this up with Journolist, Gamejournopros and so on all pushing narritives, talking points, and so on. Or media outlet's directly handing off their news stories to political parties to make sure that the "story narrative is correct."
Om, nomnomnom...
Far left and far right as two sides of the same coin here. Most reasonable leftists on the other hand share the opinion of the reasonable right wingers. Let the man speak and let everyone make up their own mind what he says.
Quite true, though keep in mind just what the definition of "far right" is these days. If you support freedom of speech, hold a view that patriotism is okay, that political correctness has run amok? You're a far-right-nazi in the minds of those far leftists who are extremely loud, and in many cases hold institutional power in many places from media to education. That proof can be seen to the average Trump derangement syndrome, to the shitshow surrounding Lindsay Shepard at Wilfred Laurier. The "reasonable left" is far right in their minds, and has a lot to do with social media creating ideological echo chambers.
Om, nomnomnom...
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...
He got an award from the NAACP. He was never a racist before he ran for president. Hell, Trump was invited to Matt Laurer's infamous misogynist dinner party. That's not something that the media elites do to a disgusting outsider. You had to be one of their own to get into that room.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
So you want to ban the man from tweeting because the media in the US only care to push their anti-Trump narrative and thus try to dissect his tweets to make them sound bad/worse instead of reporting actual news ? Maybe instead of removing his freedom to tweet, you should do something about the "Fake News media", like watch actual news instead of CNN/MSNBC.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
He meant what the constitution says and it was strictly in the context of the judiciary trampling constitutional rights. If the governement gets out of line and tries to ban guns/take away guns, that's what the 2nd amendment is for.
AKA, if Hillary nominates anti-2nd judges, the 2nd amendment is there to protect said 2nd amendment rights to begin with.
The full context :
Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick --if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is, I don't know. But I'll tell you what, that will be a horrible day, if -- if -- Hillary gets to put her judges in.
You're saying you're against using your 2nd amendment rights when the governement threatens said rights ? So you're anti-constitution I take it.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
Sure, you can skip reading the tweets. I do; I've never used the site at all. And if he was just another Twitter troll who could be ignored by staying away from that cesspool, that would be super. The problem is, he is the President of the United States. Ignoring the ramifications of what he does - yes, including on Twitter - isn't really possible if you have to live in the US. Or outside of it, for that matter. Trump tweets about moving the capital of Israel and the next day there are protests in the streets. The body count for that tweet was, I believe, 4 dead Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the alt-right talks about "trolling skills" and pretends it's beyond their comprehension why these people hate America. I couldn't think of a more plain example of the concerns these guys have, and the degree of critical thinking they do. Which are respectively: Nothing important, and none whatsoever.
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.
It would, though. It would take away his ability to communicate with the American people directly. Instead everything he said would be filtered by a hostile media that openly backed Hillary in the election. We already have enough problems with left wing media bias coloring our view of the world, we certainly don't need more.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Not true in the least, Twitter has ethics of a sort. But those ethics only support a particular view point, and in this case Trump feeds the people who are screeching that "Trump's goin' down, really now, any time, RUSSSIA RUUUUUSSSSIIIIIIIAAAA!" If they were being truly ethical, they would have banned terrorist groups that use it, or banned black bloc and antifa members who openly supported, promoted, or engaged in violence. Instead you've got multiple cases where the people who were victimized by them were banned.
Just remember who their "trust and safety council" is, and it suddenly becomes very clear what form of ethics and viewpoint they're going with.
Om, nomnomnom...
"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.
"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
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Correct, the 2nd amendment is for self defense, not for influencing public policy (i.e. terrorism).
So if the Governement repealed the 1st amendment, and then Governement forces tried to batter down your door and kidnap you in the middle of the night because you said something that was disapproved by "The Party", you wouldn't use your guns in self defense ?
Same for 2nd and the Governement trying to take away your guns ?
Then I'm sorry to say you're anti-constitution my friend. Maybe you just don't understand the concept of the Four Boxes of liberty :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM