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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."
Twitter hasn't banned Donald Trump because he has done nothing to warrant banning.
Being an assclown with opinions that you don't like is not a justification for banning someone. Otherwise the Internet would be quite empty.
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. 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.
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.
The implicit message is literally "The US' nuclear arsenal is one of the biggest in the world and proven to work". It's a simple fact. You can't even deny this fact. That's it.
Reading more than that into it says more about you than it does him.
"Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
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
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...
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 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
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
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