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."

Comments

Because they are waffling on own standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Like the GOP lately

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[mentil]

Yeah, nuclear war threats should be issued via SoundCloud or Tindr. Accusations of crossed boundaries via MySpace, and threats of suicide via Diaspora.
Too soon?

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[RedK]

Can you link said tweet ? Of course you can't since he never threatened nuclear war.

He just factually stated that the US nuclear arsenal is both functioning and bigger than a certain other country's which is both unproven and smaller.

Stating facts is not a threat.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[RedK]

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.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[greenwow]

Exactly. He didn't threaten that or even imply that, but all thinking people know what Trump thinks.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Luckyo]

Actually, most reasonable people have no clue what he thinks. That's one of the main reasons why he has accomplished this much.

We do have many people who do claim to be mind readers however. Which says nothing about Trump, and everything about such people.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[vix86]

Being an assclown with opinions that you don't like is not a justification for banning someone. Otherwise the Internet would be quite empty.

Of course its justification enough. r/the_donald does that quite often. Twitter is not beholden to the 1st amendment on their platform. Twitter is a private platform held together by private money. They could ban every politician, government, media outlet, and bureaucrat from Twitter tomorrow and the most that would happen would be a media firestorm and the eventual likely collapse of their company.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[mentil]

You're neglecting the fact that he made a comparison. It may have been a factual comparison, but what one chooses to compare can be considered a meaningful statement. The subtext was showy if not threatening.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[naubol]

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.

We should infer nothing from his choosing to mention this particular fact? Just how stupid do you think we are?

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

We should infer nothing from his choosing to mention this particular fact? Just how stupid do you think we are?

Unless you have parasites I have no idea who this we you are speaking of is. As to how stupid ? Well what are the options ? Right now it's looking like you have bought a timeshare and maybe invested in quirky.com

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[koomba]

LOL yes of course, he merely "factually stated" that the US nuclear arsenal is superior to that of North Korea. It most certainly wasn't a barely thinly veiled, dick measuring, pissing contest style juvenile outburst.

It was in no way just another one of his never ending public displays of his constant need to be the biggest, best, most powerful WINNING at everything person in the world! No way, that would be uuuuuugely SAD!

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[mapkinase]

> Otherwise the Internet would be quite empty

Like in 1990. I liked Internet in 1990.

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[Godwin O'Hitler]

Looks more like pirate than ebonics to me.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[AmiMoJo]

https://twitter.com/realDonald...

"Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!"

Of course there is always another tweet from Trump's past that is worth remembering:

https://twitter.com/realDonald...

"Be prepared, there is a small chance that our horrendous leadership could unknowingly lead us into World War III."

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[MoarSauce123]

If they applied their rules of engagement consistently I'd think it will work out quite well for them. The past years Twitter is burning through a third of their cash reserves just to stay in operation. Any collapse will come no matter who they ban. In one point we do agree, Twitter is like a newspaper, there is no right to have the letter to the editor get published.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Hal_Porter]

Eternal September really did turn out to be eternal.

Eh, it's not all bad. Yesterday I managed to convince a few Americans that the Wombles were a real youth movement in the UK in the 80's.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Hal_Porter]

Actually in a nuclear standoff pointing out your country has a very large nuclear advantage over a potential attacker is likely to cause that attacker to think again.

And of course Bill Clinton made a very similar statement.

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/07...

CLINTON'S WARNING IRKS NORTH KOREA
Published: July 13, 1993

TOKYO, July 12- The North Korean Government accused President Clinton today of provoking it with threats of war after he warned that the United States would retaliate if North Korea developed nuclear arms.

The statement by the Communist Government of Kim Il Sung came just hours after it handed over what it said were remains of 17 American soldiers killed in the Korean War.

On his weekend visit to South Korea, President Clinton warned that if North Korea developed and used an atomic weapon, "we would quickly and overwhelmingly retaliate."

"It would mean the end of their country as they know it," he said. 'Rash Act' by U.S.

The North Korean Government lashed back today through its Korean Central News Agency, monitored in Tokyo.

"The United States must ponder over the fatal consequences that might arise from its rash act," the statement said. "If anyone dares to provoke us, we will immediately show him in practice what our bold decision is."

North Korea has denied that it is developing nuclear weapons but has banned inspections of two sites suspected of being nuclear installations. Last month, North Korea backed off from its decision to drop out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, but the issue of site inspections was left unresolved. Further talks on the matter are to begin Wednesday in Geneva, where Washington is expected to press North Korea to accept inspections or face consequences that could include economic sanctions.

And so did Obama

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...

President Barack Obama delivered a stern warning to North Korea on Tuesday, reminding its "erratic" and "irresponsible" leader that America's nuclear arsenal could "destroy" his country.

Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator, claimed to have tested a submarine-launched missile last Saturday. A photograph showed the weapon flying out of the sea, although there was no independent confirmation that it had been fired from a submarine, as opposed to a sub-surface platform.

"We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals"
Barack Obama

But North Korea already has between six and eight nuclear warheads that could be mounted on a missile. If the regime does perfect a submarine-launched system then it would, in theory, be able to launch a nuclear attack on the American mainland. This would require a submarine being able to sail within missile range of the US.

Mr Obama gave warning of the possible consequences. "We could, obviously, destroy North Korea with our arsenals," he told CBS News. "But aside from the humanitarian costs of that, they are right next door to our vital ally, [South] Korea."

Mr Obama said that America was improving its own missile defences. "One of the things that we have been doing is spending a lot more time positioning our missile defence systems, so that even as we try to resolve the underlying problem of nuclear development inside of North Korea, we're also setting up a shield that can at least block the relatively low level threats that they're posing right now," he said

Full marks to Obama for pointing out that a single 50's era ICBM launched from North Korea is very likely to be intercepted given current US missile defences as well as pointing out that the US could level the whole country, i.e. that MAD applies even if you can build enough missiles to get one through.

Of course when Clinton and Obama did it th

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Antique Geekmeister]

I see the tweet quoted, and links to similar material of Donald J. Trump's, at:

http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/02/...

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[easyTree]

Probably true.

In that same spirit, your SUV will look great in my driveway.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[GameboyRMH]

He's retweeted hate speech (that a UK lawmaker was banned from Twitter for) and posted harassing content. The only reason he's seen no consequences for multiple bannable offenses is because he's POTUS, which grants you the power to be an unkillable super-troll on Twitter for newsworthiness reasons.

I sincerely hope that Twitter at least has some kind of anti-nuclear-holocaust system in place, that could intercept tweets that an algorithm would find likely to start a nuclear war and send them for quick human vetting before sending them out.

From everything I've seen and heard of Donald Trump, I'm now assuming that he's dangerously mentally unstable, to the point that he could start a nuclear war in a fit of rage, until proven otherwise.

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly, we have lost our perspective in this country, bigtime. You don't get to punish someone, even if they are the BIGGEST assclown, simply because you don't like them very much. Millennials in particular, seemingly regardless of age, seem to believe ad hominems are a legitimate form of argument or justification. They aren't. Neither opinions nor feelings are facts. You are perfectly free to not read the tweets of someone you don't want to hear from, and the simple fact that someone's mere existence gets under your skin actually says more about you than them.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[hey!]

It is not merely a statement of fact; it was the one fact out of all the facts in the universe that was selected. Since choice was involved, it clearly reflects at least somewhat on the chooser.

Secondly, human communication takes place on multiple levels; it's not just about conveyance of facts. Consider all the uses of the word "f*ck". Grammatically slots into a sentence as a noun, verb, adjective, or even adverb ("You are f*cking unbelievably stupid."), but it doesn't actually function semantically as that part of speech. Linguists call a word whose semantic function in a sentence is to convey attitude an expletive.

Everybody uses expletives occasionally, even your sainted grandma probably used the kind weak tea cusses linguists call minced oaths. But over-reliance on expletives conveys the impression of ignorance or mental deficiency. Why?

It's not the word choice that's the problem; it's an over-reliance on shared attitude. That implies an inability to marshal facts, or understand and make use of attitudes that may differ from your own. Take Lincoln's Gettysburg Address or Churchill's Finest Hour speech and compare them to Trump's tweeting. It's not just length that's the difference, the Gettysburg Address would fit comfortably into a six entry tweet storm.

Like Lincoln and Churchill, Donald Trump's *also* attempts to weld emotion and fact into a persuasive instrument, and as such his tweets are revealing. They aren't aimed at influencing foreign leaders, the opposition in the US, or even his own party as a whole. They are aimed exclusively at his own base within his party. He leans heavily on attitude for the same reason you're more likely to swear casually when communicating with a team you work closely with than with strangers.

Trump has difficulty reaching out to people who don't have an intense emotional attachment to him. That is why the Republicans have had such difficulty with their legislative agenda. Under a Reagan or even a George W. Bush they'd have crushed it last year. But Trump does not draw people together even when they have similar aims; people in his orbit are at continual risk of being ejected.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[HermMunster]

Aside from Trump having done nothing wrong, any attempt at censoring President Trump would be suicide. No one person drives enough revenue to keep Twitter alive but once it is seen by everyone else that uses Twitter that they too could be banned over the vagaries of other's opinions about what you said that's their end, in finality.

Twitter isn't currently profitable. They are afloat due to investment dollars. They would loose those investments in a heartbeat. There are also other competing platforms out there that would easily step up and take over.

With Twitter announcing censorship the library of Congress has announced they will no longer be archiving all tweets, not because it is a volatile platform, but because attempts at siding with one group over another creates an atmosphere that is no longer historically significant -- they want all twitts and not just the twitts on one side of the fence.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[HermMunster]

What person was convicted of hate crimes and what did they do to justify the conviction? What was the context of the retweet? I doubt you can answer those thoroughly and concisely given the sophistry vagueness of your claim and the sophistry in your words.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[HermMunster]

Such sophistry. We know this is sophistry when people fail to state the claim in full. We'd like to see the full facts regarding your accusation. You can't make claims and then when called out tell others to go look up your claims for the proof of them. In other words, explain yourself.

Otherwise it sounds like you are just trying to silence a man who is trying to point out censorship by Twitter. Facts and context are all that matter, not some entity's emotional tirade about what someone else said.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[HermMunster]

Thats the freaking purpose of nuclear deterrence. Damn.

Are you someone that melts over this simple type of rhetoric? We don't live in a Sesame Street political world. Wars happen, and men go and fight giving up their lives while the elderly, children, and women generally suffer only the fallout if we fail.

If pointing out through rhetoric that the consequences of NK attacking the US or allies with nukes is bad, yet that's the worst of it, then you should be praising that rhetoric instead of furthering the left's nuclear option (ala Mr. Strzok and Mr. Wray).

And he's not the only president that has used the media as a venue for foreign policy. Every freaking president has, and many a Secretary of State including your beloved Hillary. And yes nuclear options have been expressed in that very same venue.

Please, no more Sesame Street level of political banter.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[HermMunster]

I believe that I am part of that "we all" statement. I can say you are expressing extremeism, as in being an extremist. Nothing more.

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[guruevi]

I would read it more as being dismissive of North Korea.

You have to think about what it does to ones ego when after threatening someone with some martial art moves, they just pull up their jacket to show a Magnum and dismissively say "come on", turn their back and continue what they're doing.

I think Trump isn't smart, probably on the level of Bush Jr. but he knows how to get into peoples head, whether it's getting them into investing, going to his hotels, buying his steaks; he likes to impress people with size and grandeur which is mostly just marketing and for the vast majority, it works. He's a marketing savant and he can sell anything, even making him a president.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[GameboyRMH]

On the other hand, it's either intellectual lazy or indicative of topical ignorance to yell "SAUCE OR FAKE!" in response to references to mainstream news closely related to the topic at hand. But here you go:

Original poster of video Trump retweeted was banned:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tec...

Trump has engaged in harassing behavior that others have been banned for:

https://www.vox.com/culture/20...

Twitter's newsworthiness defense, pretty much reiterated in TFA:

https://www.recode.net/2017/9/...

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[HermMunster]

He used nuclear deterrence. He pointed out the futility of attacking the US.

You sir are an extremist spreading emotional judgements of things you know nothing about. Listen to your own words. Really listen to them. That is suffering borderline insanity. You are actually claiming a sitting president will chose the option of preemptive nuclear war and you are trying to spread that view around.

You are listening to the media which is just a bunch of people like you speculating about matters they know little about and pushing that narrative to fulfill their agenda. It isn't news any more, fyi.

And please be reminded that those same media hacks claiming he made threats of nuclear war spun on a dime 2 days later turning to some salacious book written by someone that has a history of exaggerations, misquotes, out of context quotes, and deception, who admits that some of what's in his book is wrong. The Washington Post said it is mostly salacious lacking in substance.

We have used preemptive nuclear attacks in the past as a deterrence to future nuclear war and as a way of saving American (and their allies) lives. We know what a devastating impact it has. To state our capabilities to an insane dictator is not the same as threatening nuclear war. Stop watching The View. Joy Behar is not your friend.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[RedK]

We should infer nothing from his choosing to mention this particular fact? Just how stupid do you think we are?

I wouldn't want to call you stupid, but he didn't choose to mention this fact out of thin air. It was a reply to Kim Jung Un who had mentionned a few days prior that he has a button on his desk at all times to launch his own arsenal, which is both factually smaller and not proven to work.

So I don't know what you are that you simply do not get it. Maybe you're just ill informed by the media you watch and fail to understand context ? Luckily that's easily solved by getting better sources of information.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[RedK]

It is not merely a statement of fact; it was the one fact out of all the facts in the universe that was selected. Since choice was involved, it clearly reflects at least somewhat on the chooser.

It was a reply to a statement made by the dictator in chief of North Korea. He didn't choose to post it out of thin air. Context matters. Your whole rant is based on you thinking he said this out of thin air, and thus you're just uninformed and angry about something that ultimately lies on you.

Again : says more about you than it does him. The statement was a simple fact. It was said in response to someone else mentioning a fact about nuclear arsenals in their own country.

Basically, it's like you saying you love the sound of your 1992 Civic's engine after talking about your timing belt blowing up, and me replying about how I just got done installing a Chevy big block V8 in my Corvette and that it purred at the drag strip. And then you go and call me an egomaniac or something. Sorry you have a bad Civic man. Not my fault. *shrug*

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[hey!]

our whole rant is based on you thinking he said this out of thin air

Well, let's compare our ways of thinking to see exactly who has tunnel vision here. Your way of thinking seems to be that (a) Kim is unaware that the US has a large nuclear arsenal, (b) that there is literally no other response Trump could have made but to point that out to him (c) the president has a particular response he's looking for from Kim in response to this presumably new information.

Since I believe none of these are true, that leads me to speculate that the target of the president's tweet is his political base. Understand this is a relatively charitable interpretation, given that I believe none of the above are true.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Hal_Porter]

Nonsense. Trump just has a more demotic and/or laconic way of saying things but his statements are completely equivalent to those of Obama and Clinton. And it's not like the DPRK is reacting any differently. In each case they've reacted in much the same way. E.g. to Clinton

The United States must ponder over the fatal consequences that might arise from its rash act," the statement said. "If anyone dares to provoke us, we will immediately show him in practice what our bold decision is.

Of course as they didn't actually attack the US. Though since Clinton's time they've got both warheads and the missiles to deliver them. And regularly threaten to attack the US and its allies. Pointing out the dire consequences to them of such an action is at this point a pro forma response that any US POTUS will make.

Actually even beefing up missile defences is another thing that each POTUS has done too. I.e. Trump's argot may be distinctive but his actions are well in line with long standing by partisan US foreign policy.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[RedK]

Your way of thinking seems to be that (a) Kim is unaware that the US has a large nuclear arsenal, (b) that there is literally no other response Trump could have made but to point that out to him (c) the president has a particular response he's looking for from Kim in response to this presumably new information.

Since I believe none of these are true

I feel you are simply unable to make accurate analysis of anything.

(a) Kim stated something to boast of North Korea's might. As North Korean and other dictators are prone to do.

(b) Trump simply stated a simple fact to put him in his place. There really was no other answer, as DPRK pretending to have any relevence in any arms race is laughable.

(c) Trump doesn't care what "Rocket boy" does moving forward, so long as he stops playing with his toys over our allies' countries.

I feel your issue is you want this to be a negative for Trump. You really feel that the man can't do anything right, and thus you put negative spin on everything, and you assume everything he does is out of malice against you.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[hey!]

(b) that there is literally no other response Trump could have made but to point that out to him

Right there is your problem. Of course there were other responses Trump could have made.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[RedK]

Right there is your problem. Of course there were other responses Trump could have made.

Well he could have done the Clinton-Bush-Obama method of sending them money, but obviously 20 years of doing that shows it's not a good solution.

And it's not like he did any differently than his predecessors, as Clinton and Obama both used the "But ours is bigger" method with North Korea in the past, without it resulting in thermonuclear war (because that would be way one sided and even the DPRK regime knows not to actually do anything). See here for information about how this is not a "Trump thing" :

https://politics.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=11574251&cid=55874713

So I don't know what else you propose, Arm chair president ? Ignoring the problem has done nothing, sending money to solve it as done nothing. Might as well just remind little "Rocket Boy" that the US' rockets are bigger and proven to work and leave it at that.

Again, says more about you that you want to spin this negatively. Obviously, you're not really afraid of nuclear war, as you're here on Slashdot instead of hiding in a bunker somewhere.

The more I read about politics on Slashdot, the more I see the damage that CNN/MSNBC and other left "news" is doing to the minds of people.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Hal_Porter]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

When Leonidas was in charge of guarding the narrow mountain pass at Thermopylae with just 7,000 allied Greeks in order to delay the invading Persian army, Xerxes offered to spare his men if they gave up their arms. Leonidas replied "Molon labe", which translates to "Come and take them".[26] It was adopted as the motto of the Greek 1st Army Corps.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[edjs]

Stating facts is not a threat.

Context and emotional content matter. The statement "Your restaurant has no fire insurance" is a statement of fact, by itself not a threat. However, if this statement was made in response to your statement "We'll be using a different meat supplier," a reasonable person might interpret it as a threat.

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[hey!]

One of the things a president has to do is reassure allies and unite them behind US leadership, Reagan certainly wouldn't have missed the opportunity this represents. To do that you have to balance assertions of US strength with acknowledging the serious consequences of using it and calling for restraint even if you don't believe the ostensible target of your words is capable of it.

And the president to some degree has to play 3 dimensional chess because there's more going on in the world than Korea. China is asserting itself globally, eventually hoping to rival the US in hard power but at present attempting to become curtail US inflence. North Korea is a major problem for them, but it's not a hand that plays itself. Demanding that China fix the problem only cedes power to them. Using this situation to unite our allies behind US leadership would do more to push China to act than impotent demands. That's what George Schultz would be doing if he were still at State.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[currently_awake]

Trump is good advertising. "Trump said ..." encourages people to get twitter accounts.

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[dougdonovan]

twitter...trump...marketing.

Re: Because they are waffling on own standards

[mnemotronic]

Official Whitehouse policy re: the Donald's statements is (according to Sarah Huckabee Sanders) that people shouldn't believe every word. I guess that means if he says he's having some fun & launched missiles at NK, we can laugh along and say "ha ha, only foolin". Hopefully NK, China and Russia would get the joke too.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[rtb61]

The guy called for the genocidal elimination of the entire North Korean population, that is a war crime, don't you know, hmm, maybe you think it is cool to entirely destroy a country, every man, woman, child, grandpa and grandma, uncle, auntie, puppies and kittens, every bird in every tree, even all the blades of grass (not to mention polluting all surrounding countries with radioactively for centuries and killings millions there as well). Talk about hate speech, calling for a country to be entirely destroyed is by Twitters own conditions of use is a banning offence. Not that I care about Twitter don't use it, don't read it and think it is a total waste of effort but their selective censorship is quite telling, they are promoting the politically ideology of their owners whilst pretending not to.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[thegarbz]

He used nuclear deterrence.

So he threatened. Glad you agree with me.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[Xenx]

You're obviously either an idiot, shill, or a troll.. I don't even know why I bother with some people. His tweet, twice over, qualified under twitter's policy as hateful. First, yes.. what he said isn't a direct threat. It's an implied/veiled threat. Their policy is vague enough that it both qualifies, and doesn't qualify, based on interpretation and whether they want to say it does. The same could more or less be true of the disparaging comments about North Korea. While calling them a depleted and food starved regime might be technically accurate, in the context of the tweet it wasn't used as a fact. It was used to belittle N.K. as a whole. His statements do qualify under their hateful conduct.

So, pull your head out of your ass and try to learn some common fucking sense.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[ConceptJunkie]

And that's entirely the basis for his strategy. He plays the media like a fiddle. They will crucify him no matter what he does, so he constantly trolls them to keep them busy and happy (if you can call constant fits of spluttering rage happy). I find it very distasteful, but you have to admit, it works. I find it hilarious how easily he manipulates the media.

Trump is arrogant, egotistical and crude, but he's not stupid, and he clearly doesn't care what the press thinks of him, which gives him a freedom almost no other Republican politician has had, because amidst all the fireworks, he's accomplished a lot, regardless of whether you like what he's done or not.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[ConceptJunkie]

See, you are just like the media, whom Trump trolls with impunity and you are falling for it just as easily as they do.

The idea that he's not sane is so facile, and requires so little effort, and has been used against every President since Carter, with the possible exception of Bush 41. It's as meaningless as a Democrat calling someone racist.

I see absolutely no indication that Trump is unstable. Instead, I see a man who has an enormous ego, and who loves to troll people, and who have little compunction for decorum, at least in public forums, but I don't see any reason to think he's unstable. In fact, I see quite the opposite. I see someone who is very methodical and calculating, and someone who knows he cannot win over his enemies (i.e., most of the MSM and their audience) and will waste little or no energy trying, but who nevertheless is very persuasive in dealing with people. He's accomplished a lot (regardless of whether you think it's good or bad), and will continue to do so. No matter what happens in the next 3 years, it won't be the status quo.

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[ConceptJunkie]

But, but, but, muh Trump insanity...

Re:Because they are waffling on own standards

[GameboyRMH]

Ah, the old "sufficiently advanced trolling is indistinguishable from mental instability" defense.

Well I hope he actually has real mental problems, because he's not just saying crazy things on Twitter, he's doing crazy things in real life. And what's scarier than an actual crazy person is a supposedly sane person who expertly plays the role of a crazy person 24/7 for the lulz.

I don't know why you think he's smart or polite in private either. In private he talks about grabbing pussies (and later not actually grabbing pussies because that wasn't his voice?), obstructing justice with the Russians, and asks if Amazon is a monopoly and why the US can't actually use its nuclear arsenal. There are also accounts of him raging about the exact same conflicts with reality in private that you think he's just trolling the public with.

Different from the status quo isn't necessarily better, and you shouldn't praise change arbitrarily. Things can always be worse.

We all know the reason why

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:We all know the reason why

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing how for some people, their only desire is to silence those they disagree with.

Re:We all know the reason why

[willoughby]

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.

Re:We all know the reason why

[Anonymous Coward]

What's crazy is that some people these days are so easily offended that they need to be apologized to in order to feel a little bit better about having read a Tweet that they disagreed with.

I mean come on when I was in school the things 5th graders would say to each other was far more offensive and "ban worthy", and this was before Twitter ever existed.

Re:We all know the reason why

[RedK]

You know, you can just not read his tweets if you don't like what he says ?

Some of us enjoy his candor and his trolling skills.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:We all know the reason why

[willoughby]

I don't read his tweets. I don't Twitter at all. My complaint is that whenever President Trump writes anything in Twitter, all proper news reporting and editorial news filtering is brought to its knees and all of the media here in the US rabidly echo the tweet, an analysis of the tweet, multiple interviews with politicians about the tweet, on and on ad infinitum.

Meanwhile, real events around the world are completely ignored by the US news media. To use a term from the old newspaper days, none of the Tweets from President Trump should be in the "A" section at all.

Re:We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

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."

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

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.

Re:We all know the reason why

[PopeRatzo]

To use a term from the old newspaper days, none of the Tweets from President Trump should be in the "A" section at all.

It would be a huge mistake for Twitter to ban Donald Trump's tweets. It's important that the nation (and to some extent, the world) has an unfiltered view into his thoughts. Statements from the US president are always worth examining.

I have a feeling that his tweets are going to be very valuable as a historical record in the near future. And useful to the electorate here at home.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

I do mean it in the actual sense, not in the modern far left propaganda sense. As in people who share views of national socialists. Not people who happen to be to the right of Marx.

Re:We all know the reason why

[RedK]

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.

Re: We all know the reason why

[PopeRatzo]

Why do you hate *CHRISTMAS*? Why do you hate *JESUS*?

Tomorrow is the Feast of the Epiphany, and I wish you a blessed day.

Re:We all know the reason why

[sound vision]

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.

Re:We all know the reason why

[DNS-and-BIND]

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.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

So in your view, political violence is purview of the left only.

As I noted above, I use these things in the actual sense they're used. Not in the way that extremists on either side use them. National socialists are distinctly on the right, just like communists are distinctly on the left.

And both are indeed violent on ideological level.

Re:We all know the reason why

[PopeRatzo]

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.

I like to think that the apology is not for not banning him, but rather for all the people it has banned for much less.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

So in your view, political violence is purview of the left only.

Some amazing reading skills there. Where did I say that? Ah...right...that'd be nowhere.

As I noted above, I use these things in the actual sense they're used. Not in the way that extremists on either side use them. National socialists are distinctly on the right, just like communists are distinctly on the left.

No, you're looking for fascist on the right. National socialists are distinctly on the left, just like the FLQ were national socialists based around marxism. If you don't understand, then go read Plato's "The Republic" which should clear it up.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

If you are a patriot then you can't be a Trump fan.

Right, because being for legal immigration, gutting chain immigration, enforcing existing immigration laws is very anti-patriotic. And you probably still don't understand why Trump won, but think a raging racist that holds pro-segregation views and is the #2 in the DNC is the model of a patriot.

Re:We all know the reason why

[mapkinase]

Are you sure it's their _only_ desire?

Re: We all know the reason why

[Cyberax]

And also selling out your country for a 10% tax cut to foreign hostile powers. Just read the Wolff's book.

Re: We all know the reason why

[AmiMoJo]

The problem with his tweets are that his unfiltered, unpresidential and undiplomatic outbursts might start a war or have some severe economic consequences. It's a perfect demonstration of why people with that much power are usually more restrained and careful about what they say.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Crashmarik]

The author of the explosive new book about Donald Trump's presidency acknowledged in an author's note that he wasn't certain all of its content was true.

Michael Wolff, the author of "Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House," included a note at the start that casts significant doubt on the reliability of the specifics contained in the rest of its pages.

Several of his sources, he says, were definitely lying to him, while some offered accounts that flatly contradicted those of others.

http://www.businessinsider.com...
 

Maybe I'll get to it, after I read Von Daniken's latest best seller.

Re:We all know the reason why

[Crashmarik]

Hey you know the drill

If the product is free, it's because you are the product.

Which is more valuable to guy selling crap, media that informs people or media that manipulates people ?

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

Do you know what's a really easy way to identify an extremist?

They will usually say that the only extremists exist on the opposite side of the spectrum, and start suggesting that the extremists on their side are actually on the opposite side. Typical path to this is sophistry, as you do above.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

I know right? If only we could stop with the freedom of speech bullshit and just have a right to silence those we disagree with.

So, NKVD?

Re: We all know the reason why

[interkin3tic]

Do you have a better example than a teacher's assistant at a small Canadian university who was apologized to already?

Re:We all know the reason why

[sound vision]

As the leader of the world's most powerful military, I think the President's agency is a little more consequential than a random Palestinian's. I make no excuses for Palestinians who want to screw up Palestinian affairs. (Whether that's what was happening with the protest is another question, which is irrelevant here.) But I make even less excuses for an American who wants to screw up Palestinian affairs. If the President didn't understand that his tweet would probably lead directly to Palestinian and Israeli deaths (not to mention the long-term geopolitical fallout), he needs to be replaced by someone competent. If he didn't care, he needs to be replaced by someone responsible.

I've noticed the Trump apologists like to draw comparisons between Trump and the bottom of the barrel - random Palestinian farmers, dipshit celebrities, internet trolls. Our leaders need to be held to a higher standard and their agency needs to be used to better effect than those guys. Until that happens, the country's long decline will only be accelerated.

Re:We all know the reason why

[RedK]

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.

He didn't just tweet that out though. They actually formally announced it during a press conference :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk596vBap7c

So no, in this case, it's not a tweet. And let's go further on that, something the media didn't do. This wasn't a Trump decision. It was a bi-partisan vote in congress that made legislation forcing the executive branch to move the embassy to Jerusalem. The Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995 established this :

https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ45/PLAW-104publ45.pdf

So really, your beef and those "4 bodies" are on the hands of Congress, which voted 90% in favor of said legislation, on both sides of the aisle (Democrats and Republicans). So you know, just the little things you might want to know about what Trump does, before you accuse "Tweeting". This is far bigger than a single tweet.

Do you have a better example ?

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

And that kind of thinking is exactly why North Korea was allowed to develop nuclear weapons under Clinton, younger Bush and Obama. Most people are so isolated from actual power aspect of geopolitics, they no longer remember how to conduct themselves on this arena. Last US president who had any clue was Bush senior, as shown by his treatment of Russia right after collapse of USSR. And he ultimately applied too much stick or not enough stick, depending on how you look at the situation. But at least his actions demonstrated he understood how power works and how it should be used.

In this regard, Trump has indeed been a first US president in a while to remember how the system actually works. Mostly intuitively too it seems, which is even more surprising. Which is why people like you, utterly ignorant of this aspect, think he's going to start a nuclear war by answering the youngest Kim in the same language that youngest Kim speaks. The language you cannot understand.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

Yes, that is the extremist point of view from a left wing extremist. Just like a right wing extremist would say the exact same thing, only changing "right" for "left".

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

Ah, you mean the "left right axis as you view it". Ok.

As I noted above, I use the commonly accepted meanings.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

No argument on critique of authoritarianism, regardless of location no political spectrum. We're in agreement here. It does not however detract from the point I made that authoritarianism exists on both edges of political spectrum, and both are in fact capable of reaching power.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

They will usually say that the only extremists exist on the opposite side of the spectrum, and start suggesting that the extremists on their side are actually on the opposite side. Typical path to this is sophistry, as you do above.

You want to know how to tell someone doesn't understand what's written? When they make shit up because they're reading into something. At no point did I say that extremists are only on one side. The fact that you're engaging in your own sophistry is damn hilarious though. The number of people who "fall into the right" and "are nazis" is so narrow you that it could fit at the tip of a pen. If you don't understand the differences between ethnocentrism, ethnostatism, and so on, you look like an idiot to everyone who does. FYI: The #2 in the DNC is an ethnostatist, and you should be weeping that he was elected.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

You mean the guy who came out saying that his own book is full of lies, misinformation, and propaganda?

Re:We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

Which is more valuable to guy selling crap, media that informs people or media that manipulates people ?

In a democracy, and republic the first. The latter when there are state interests. Remember on "Morning Joe" when Mia came out saying that the media's job is to tell people what to believe? People can already see that the media is manipulating people, what's funny are just how hard some groups of people are holding onto the media "being true."

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

Do you have a better example than a teacher's assistant at a small Canadian university who was apologized to already?

Sure. How about donglegate? Remember the guy with the bowling shirt? Remember the media attacking Tim Hunt? Yeah and his wife. The attacks on Nicholas Alexander Christakis for daring to tell students to grow the fuck up over halloween costums. Not good enough? George "All I want for Christmas is white genocide" Ciccariello-Maher. Not good enough? Preston "All whites are racist" Mitchum. Not good enough? Jordan Peterson who the left classifies as "racist, sexist, transphobic, neo-nazi, nazi, etc" for refusing to bow to "gendered pronouns" and speaking against bill C-16. Not good enough? The absolute shitshow against Bret Weinstein, including the radical leftist students taking the university president hostage. Not good enough? Melissa "I need some muscle over here" Click and assaulting that same student. Not good enough? The university professors at Berkeley who came out in defense of the students rioting against Milo Yanoppolis. Not good enough? Michael Bonesteel who was hounded, doxed, and assaulted for refusing to give "trigger warnings" to students in an art class. And that's not even 1/10th of the cases in the last 5 years.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

To quote myself:

Typical path to this is sophistry, as you do above.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

Typical path to this is sophistry, as you do above.

You could have saved yourself time and said "I have no coherent argument." If you did, you wouldn't be trying to hand wave what I stated away. It would also mean, that you'd have to admit to being wrong in part or some.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

There are extremists and nutcases on both sides. At the federal level, only the right elects them.

Sure does explain Venezuela, or the current state of Germany pushing "hate speech" laws. Or France wanting to do the same...yes those governments are all *very* right-wing.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

No argument on critique of authoritarianism, regardless of location no political spectrum. We're in agreement here. It does not however detract from the point I made that authoritarianism exists on both edges of political spectrum, and both are in fact capable of reaching power.

Sure does. But that doesn't put "national socialists" into the right, especially when the difference between them and a communist is the method of the boot. You also seem to have problems realizing that the left has institutional power in many countries right now, and are pushing laws that are anti-free speech. Germany, France, Canada, UK, Scotland, Sweden. All of those countries that are implementing various "hate speech" laws or other laws to restrict speech are left wing. The right has it's own brand of authoritarianism, that's fascism, identitarianism, a couple of others.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Mashiki]

Trump won because of the lousy electoral collage system which is about 100 years obsolete.

How about you go to a country that doesn't have an electoral college, and see how it works. Like here, in Canada. Then you can enjoy the benefits of a leader who has no care whatsoever of anyone except the major cities which keep them in power. Ever wonder why Canada has had multiple sovereignty referendums, or why western canada absolutely hates ottawa?

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

You seem to now assume that similarity in methodologies among the authoritarian left and authoritarian right has something to do with ideology.

It doesn't. It's simply the fact of efficiency of certain brutal methodology being universal, regardless of political ideology of the user.

Re: We all know the reason why

[Luckyo]

Except that I pointed out that you don't have one. It's hilarious that you can't even understand that much.

Re:We all know the reason why

[DNS-and-BIND]

Wow, you sure have a low opinion of Palestinians. Pretty racist that you think they're not capable of anything but violence when someone says something they don't like.

Re: We all know the reason why

[sound vision]

You should plug back into dear leader's Twitter feed, your trolling skills could use a touch-up. I heard he's recently allocated more time in his schedule for Fox News and social media, you should have plenty more examples to follow.

Block Trump?

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump's the only reason I'm on Twitter.

What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Jarwulf]

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.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[walterbyrd]

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.

Re: What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Anonymous Coward]

Leftards are malinformed by their Fake News.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[cascadingstylesheet]

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.

Because social justice! Away with you and your white male western capitalist logic, foul villain!

Re: What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Anonymous Coward]

You mean Trump doesn't really want to watch Gorilla News and that was blatantly fake, yet still the media fell for it? Wow.

The real reason they haven't banned Trump is because if they did, people might start asking why BLM members are allowed to threaten killing law enforcement officials on Twitter while Twitter happily gives them a free "hashtag emoji" or whatever it is Twitter calls those things.

Twitter's political bias is pretty blatant if you look at what hashtags get promoted and what news becomes "Twitter Moments."

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[pz]

He called Hillary Clinton a traitor. Treason is punishable by death.

He also famously stated, "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 tell you what, that will be a horrible day.”

He has called for the death penalty to be used on specific people (NYC truck terrorist) and on general classes of people (those who kill policemen).

Do we need to go on?

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[RedK]

So what you're saying is he's pro constitution and pro law enforcement. And you think that's bad ?

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[AHuxley]

The "private entity" only keeps working if no actual gov is accepted.
Once a gov starts using a service as a gov in an official role... then its a "private entity" that has to consider the needs of a gov.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Frosty Piss]

Even Slashdot filters the "n" word...

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Frosty Piss]

Even Slashdot filters the "n" word...

But skank, cunt, whore, fag, queer, penis, wop, beaner, white trash, and lezbo all seem just fine.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Ichijo]

Let's test your reading comprehension. What do you think he meant by, "Nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is."?

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[king neckbeard]

I think that politicians tend to be more well behaved when death threats are on the table. The main problem is that there is so much collusion between politicians and our media that the motivations for the death threats are misplaced. If Paul Ryan expected armed angry hordes when he cuts off medical care, or just for failure to get America a modern healthcare system, he'd be better at his job.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[RedK]

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.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[karmatic]

Vote? Lobby? The NRA does a pretty decent job of encouraging both.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[Ichijo]

You're saying you're against using your 2nd amendment rights when the governement threatens said rights ?

Correct, the 2nd amendment is for self defense, not for influencing public policy (i.e. terrorism).

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[91degrees]

He called Hillary Clinton a traitor. Treason is punishable by death.

Seriously? Is that the best example you can come up with? An implicit indication that something could conceivably result in a legal death is not quite the same as something like "I'm going to kill Hillary Clinton"

He also famously stated, "If she gets to pick her judges: Nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I donâ(TM)t know. But I tell you what, that will be a horrible day.â

That's a little better. Although it's pretty abstract for a threat.

He has called for the death penalty to be used on specific people (NYC truck terrorist) and on general classes of people (those who kill policemen).

I don't think Twitter's policy is meant to cover advocation of a fairly common legal position. They do want to allow some political discussion.

Do we need to go on?

Well, something that might be considered a threat rather than a political position might be a little better. These really seem to be reaching, and going for a very pedantic interpretation of the letter of the rules rather than the obvious intent.

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[dzelenka]

"Correct, the 2nd amendment is for self defense, not for influencing public policy (i.e. terrorism)."

Whoa! You mean the framers of the constitution were against using guns to influence public policy!?!? ... like the "taxation without representation" policy?

Re:What exactly has Trump done to deserve a ban?

[RedK]

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

Re:Follow the money

[omnichad]

that it takes more than one person to drive a conversation

But I bet a good bit of the rest of their income is commentary on that one person's tweets.

No rules

[AK Marc]

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.

Re:No rules

[Mashiki]

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.

A Good Reason NOT to Ban Trump

[DERoss]

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.

Re:A Good Reason NOT to Ban Trump

[Z80a]

That could be said about pretty much anyone on the platform.
Better to murder the bad ideas in an easy accessible place rather than sweeping under the rug and letting em grow in a platform where no opposition will be found.

Re:Follow the money

[ma1wrbu5tr]

Always follow the money.

Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censorship

[walterbyrd]

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?

Survival

[Topwiz]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[walterbyrd]

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?

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[walterbyrd]

I hope you are trolling. I would hate to think anybody could be that ignorant.

I Am Not A Crook

[mentil]

If the President does it, it's not against Twitter's rules. By definition.

Maybe he stays because they don't like him.

[cervesaebraciator]

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).

Trump is good for the world

[elcor]

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.

Horsefeathers

[IonOtter]

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.

Re:Horsefeathers

[Narcocide]

I thought it was a good idea, actually.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Doubleplusgood

[VeryFluffyBunny]

Well isn't that just doubleplusgood?

It would be the end of Twitter

[wyattstorch516]

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.

Re:It would be the end of Twitter

[Narcocide]

Very insightful, except that this outcome is inevitable now even if they don't ban him. Go ahead, play your thought experiment out completely in the other direction. What happens if Twitter's TOS proves completely unenforceable because the very President of the United States even flaunts it and any actions taken to improve the quality of the dialogue are seen as hostile, thereby ironically turning it into nothing more than an amplifier for endless unchecked hostility. How, exactly, do you think advertisers and investors would react to that? Keep in mind most of them are the same so-called "leftists" who would cringe and recoil in horror at the thought their agencies profits or spending might be associated directly with any sort of racist or violence-inciting dialogue.

Here's an idea

[RightwingNutjob]

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.

Twitter Rules on Violence and Physical Harm

[nsaspook]

This policy does not apply to military or government entities.
https://blog.twitter.com/offic...

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[Anonymous Coward]

"Trump was never considered racist before he ran for president"

The hell he wasn't. The complaints have been many over the years about his unwillingness to have black tenants, for example.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The Verge

[Grieviant]

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.

Re:The Verge

[mapkinase]

>far-left

It's not far-left. It's tabloid.

Twitter's "explanation" is hogwash.

[Jack Zombie]

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.

Thanks for making the point...

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Slashdot is a politics site now?

[Narcocide]

We're all scoring comments on you. All of us. If you registered you'd know that. Everyone gets mod points assigned based on how often they post and how often they spend their mod points.

Be Careful What You Wish For

[OffACough]

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?

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

A foreign hostile adversary wants only to harm our country.

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.

A traitor harms our country on behalf of the hostile foreign adversary which controls his actions, as Russia controls 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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Twitter is correct

[backslashdot]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[DNS-and-BIND]

But... the media told me the party of racism is the Republicans. Democrats are totally not racist. That's why the media refused to air the photo of Hillary kissing the Grand Wizard of the KKK. Can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding.

Re:Threatening nuclear war to distract from treaso

[Mashiki]

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...

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[DNS-and-BIND]

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.

They Need To Fix

[NicknameUnavailable]

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.

Trump's public statements aren't tha to understand

[raymorris]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re: Trump wins again!

[Asten]

what are you, 2?

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

I think we do need Trump to meet such an end, because humanity needs to rid itself of the 'king' mentality, and actions speak louder than words. War crimes should be a capital offense, and Trump is definitely a war criminal, along with Obama and Dubya.

And puh-leaze he got permission for his Syrian bomb dropping photo op from Putin who also approved Trump Tower Moscow.

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.

Is that such a bad thing

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[jrumney]

The guy who thought "I used to think the Klan were OK, until I found out they smoked pot" was a funny thing to say in reply to being asked what he thought of the KKK in the context of a confirmation hearing, which eventually led to a Republican majority committee rejecting his nomination as a federal judge? No, never.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[tsa]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[Anonymous Coward]

So, Matt Laurer's [and or the media]'s willing to suck rich [Trump] dick is proof that rich [Trump] is not racist? Oh, right, no. Trump being racist is orthogonal to whether the media reports it. The media being friends with Trump is orthogonal to Trump being a racist. The media isn't, oddly enough, SJW. They're cock suckers. Sometimes they're obsessed about stuff that's, you know, neither news worthy nor illegal: Trump being racist. That's about it.

PS - He got an award from NECO, not the NAACP. But, you know, if you think awards are everything, perhaps you heard about the Noble Peace Prize for Obama. That should stopped him from making war.

Re:Stories about Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Take it one step further...

[thegreatbob]

... 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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

Yeah, Bush, Obama, and Trump are all war criminals, as were most of their cabinets, and thus all deserve the death penalty.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[jrumney]

Just because he is pictured in an award ceremony lineup with two black people, it does not automatically mean that it is an NAACP award. Black people are eligible for other awards too you know.

Re:Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censors

[Brulath]

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.

Re:Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censors

[RedK]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

God not that misinfo again

[aepervius]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump is a constant liar and is subservient to Vladimir Putin. I think you know what happens next.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[PopeRatzo]

Let's test your mind reading skills. I'm thinking of a number. What number is it?

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.

Mih Sem

[mikhailsemin1]

The twitter hinted that they can block anyone, and their status user does not bother

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Luckyo]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[Anonymous Coward]

We have always been at war with Eastasia.

Seriously, the one of the things that Donald Trump has been known for is racial divisiveness, going back decades.

Perhaps Donald Trump's first claim to fame, when he was in his 20s in the 1970s, was being sued by DOJ for violations of the Fair Housing Act for discriminating against tenants on race. The infamous lawyer Roy Cohn was brought on for that case, and Trump launched a ridiculous $100 million counter suit.

In 1989 there was the case of the Central Park Five, where 5 black and latino teens were accused and convicted of brutally raping a white woman in Central Park. In response, Trump ran full page ads in the NYC newspapers calling for the return of the death penalty for New York, referring to muggers and murderers and pretty clearly alluding to the Central Park Five for the cause of execution. Turns out that those black and latino teenagers were railroaded, the police extracted false confessions, and they were wrongly convicted, as confirmed 14 years later by DNA evidence and the capture of the actual rapist, Matias Reyes. Of course, Trump never backed down when confronted more recently with the truth that the political crusade of his earlier years was tainted by false convictions heavily bogged down by racial undertones, and refused to even accept that the Central Park Five were wrongly convicted.

Then there is Trump's more recent claim to fame as being the main champion of the utterly ridiculous conspiracy theory that Barack Obama was not actually born in America but Kenya instead and thus was an illegitimate president. If I have to try to walk through the racism pouring through that hogwash, then it really isn't worth bothering because you won't read it anyway. Especially when you consider that Obama's original presidential rival, John McCain, literally was not born in any of the States proper within the United States, but rather the Panama Canal Zone, where his Navy Officer father was stationed. There was never any serious movement to consider McCain an illegitimate presidential candidate on the grounds of not being a naturally born American, despite the circumstances of McCain's birth being on much less clear legal grounds than those of Obama.

Do note that none of this includes the racial issues surrounding Trump in his more recent political run and what he has done as president.

And for a kicker, Fred Trump, Donald's father, was arrested after a KKK riot in Queens in 1927.

Ban him

[Tailhook]

Please. Let's tear that scab clean off. I would love to live in that shitstorm.

Do it, bitches. Be who you are.

Re:Ban him

[p0p0]

You don't heal a wound by tearing off a scab. You only reopen the wound. I guess you were just trying to be clever by not saying "band-aid". or "bandage" if the brand name triggers you. No actual arguments, just rhetoric. SAD!

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[tsa]

You didn't answer my question.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[DNS-and-BIND]

Right wingers don't get invited to media elite parties. Trump was a pro abortion Democrat forever. The accusations of racist didn't start until he ran for president.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

Easiest path would be war crimes.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Luckyo]

Or you could try not looking down on people just because they don't share your political views.

Re:Ban him?

[king neckbeard]

No, Trump is the least popular president ever. Had he not been running against Clinton, he wouldn't have had a chance. Although I expect the Dems to search America for the only person that could lose an election in 2020, because they are immune to awareness of their voter base.

Censoring Trump would kill Twitter

[bradley13]

"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.

Re:Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censors

[AmiMoJo]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Solandri]

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.

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[AmiMoJo]

So tasteless and narcissistic, but lacking any actual business skills or leadership qualities beyond people hoping to get rich by association.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Aussie]

So your saying he's Zaphod Beeblebrox ?

Re: Trump's public statements aren't tha to unders

[koomba]

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.

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[thegarbz]

Trump has never supported any racist group.

In politics being the only person to not instantly condemn a violent and racist hate attack is pretty much defined as "support".

Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[Mordaximus]

Trump has never supported any racist group.

In politics being the only person to not instantly condemn a violent and racist hate attack is pretty much defined as "support".

Being the only person to selectively condemn a violent and racist hate attacks certainly earns him said title. To wit, none of the mass violence of the past year perpetrated by a white person was labeled terrorism, where as most done by non-whites were instantly called so. Perhaps he only does so to push his "wall" and immigrant agenda, nonetheless, it's a pattern.

Re:Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censors

[jrumney]

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.

Elected world leaders play a critical role in that

[GrandCow]

"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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[BlueStrat]

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

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[ABEND]

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.

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[account_deleted]

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-o-

[easyTree]

Self-serving duplicitous nonsense at its finest.

Censorship

[HermMunster]

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.

Re: Trump wins again!

[HermMunster]

When observed at the most fundamental level one has to agree with him. Forget the sophistry within his comment. Constant tantrums a year after Trump won the presidency is a huge indicator of ones mental state.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[HermMunster]

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?

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[HermMunster]

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.

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[king neckbeard]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[HermMunster]

How little you appear to have actually learned.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[HermMunster]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[HermMunster]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[acrimonious howard]

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?

A ban would negatively affect Twitter?

[MtViewGuy]

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).

They would never....

[MerlTurkin]

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!

Re:Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censors

[RedK]

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.

I dumped Twitter because of wild Chumpies

[swschrad]

and I'm not the only one.

PT Barnum explained it decades ago

[argStyopa]

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.

Don't block him

[SlithyMagister]

But hold him to the same standards as everyone else

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[BlueStrat]

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

Re: Trump's public statements aren't tha to unders

[Luckyo]

Interesting extrapolation from "don't look down on people who don't share you political views". Straight into power politics and violence.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[Luckyo]

I must say that I'm very intrigued at your insinuations of my omnipotence in communications.

Re:Becasue Gab.ai & people are sick of censors

[Mashiki]

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?

Re:We should lock him up, twitter is irrelevant.

[Mashiki]

"Can't we drone this guy?" - Hillary Clinton, on bombing a sovereign embassy in the UK.

Re:Threatening nuclear war to distract from treaso

[bluegutang]

"He's better than Kim Jong Un" is such a bad defense that it could only be used for Trump...

Re:Threatening nuclear war to distract from treaso

[Mashiki]

"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.

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Re:KICK hIM OFF NOW

[piers_downunder]

Trump also threatened to boycott the Late Show if Letterman didn't publicly apologise for calling him a racist. IIRC, Letterman read the letter from Trump on air, muttered something about how he will miss him and threw away the letter. This was all well before the election.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[ConceptJunkie]

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.

Re:Trump's public statements aren't tha to underst

[ConceptJunkie]

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.

Why? Because he speaks his true mind...

[iq145]

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!"