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President Trump Says It is 'Very Dangerous' When Companies Like Twitter Regulate Own Content (reuters.com)
In an interview with Reuters on Monday, the U.S. President Donald Trump said that it is "very dangerous" for social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to regulate the content on their own platforms. Trump's remarks come on the backdrop of technology giants Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Spotify, and YouTube ridding select kind of content of their platforms in the recent weeks. On Saturday, Trump argued that social media companies are "closing down the opinions" of conservatives. He tweeted, "They are closing down the opinions of many people on the RIGHT, while at the same time doing nothing to others. Speaking loudly and clearly for the Trump Administration, we won't let that happen."
Further reading: Twitter Is 'Rethinking' Its Service, and Suspending 1M Accounts Each Day.
Further reading: Twitter Is 'Rethinking' Its Service, and Suspending 1M Accounts Each Day.
For all the people about to scream about how he's hitler again (you're so original), not one of you would be happy if it was Commcast* *VIOLATING THE HOLY-OF-HOLIES NET NEUTRALITY* to perform the exact same censorship of the exact same people that your favored platforms have performed.
So let's cut the B.S. that all corporate censorship is fine and you're a nazi for opposing it. Even you only like corporate censorship when its the corporations on your allowed-list censoring the "correct" people that you personally don't like.
* Corporate owner of MSNBC and Rachel Maddow, BTW. So think about that before you claim that Comcast is a pro-Trump cult.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
*buzzz* ..."Who is John Brennan?"
seems to be a euphemism for hate speech. Stop being a bigot and your problems will solve themselves.
Sites like Facebook and Twitter are defacto news sites and should not be regulating content. Regulating content should be punishable by death.
The moment any platform that allows public user comments starts meddling in who can speak, and who can say what - that is dangerous. Even more so when multiple companies collide to prevent one person from speaking as is the case with Alex Jones.
But that should, if anything, be a legal matter; someone I read somewhere said that Alex Jones may well be able to make a restraint to trade lawsuit happen against a variety of companies.
HOWEVER what is even more dangerous is letting the government have direct sway over what actions companies like Facebook or Twitter can or cannot have over users. You have to be able to let them run platforms as they see fit, then let the market of users and financial consequences dictate what actions are appropriate for a company to take.
Even though Twitter banned Alex Jones, you also see people like Will Wheaton self banning - so it's not like there is a balance naturally occurring anyway, even as things are.
For myself, I continue to use Twitter but the way to enjoy it is instantly mute anyone who goes political. Technical Twitter seems OK still.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
He is more concerned that far right are being kicked off but the real concern for the companies is once they start down a route of saying what views can and can't appear they are opening a never ending problem for themselves and possibly risk changing their legal status from an open platform to a curated one and hence liable for their content
are you worried that you won't have a platform to whine, cry, and incite hatred on once you're removed from office?
Twitter is doing exactly nothing to stop people from starting their own service. If they don't like the terms at Twitter they are free to go start a new service where they can set the terms. Twitter is not obligated to bend to the whims of Trump or anyone else if they fear it would be bad for their bottom line. After all at the end of the day they exist to make money, not to be the mouthpiece of any one man.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Biggest Soap Opera Comedy Drama show since the twentieth century.
BS OCD
mainline
Because Trump knows (because he purchased them) most of his followers are bots. He's feeling threatened that his number is going to get smaller like his hands.
As in who they decide is allowed to buy one? Either you allow all private companies to select who can use their service or you allow none of them to do so.
This is quite tricky territory for companies such as Twitter, Google etc.
If they now censor speech as a matter of course, does this mean they are making editorial decisions? If so, does this make them liable for all speech on their platforms. Or will they only use this power to stop speech they don't agree with even if the speech is not illegal / defamatory etc.
There was a person in another forum who denigrated Youtube's effort at fact-checking videos (Youtube recently started publishing links to Wikipedia articles on climate change, next to videos skeptical about the existence of climate change) - this poster was claiming that fact checking was tantamount to silencing alternative viewpoints. It's... an interesting corruption of the notion of truth. This person was equating "being incorrect" with "having a different opinion."
Would solve the problem...
Trolls do tend to say that whenever moderation starts removing abuse dominating a conversation channel.
The other top response is saying that they wouldn't be trolling of only the other side would stop being so wrong.
But to never moderate those things would mean that everything becomes rhetoric - all noise and no signal. It defeats the purpose of having having a channel of communication... which is kind of the point of this modern form of trolling, isn't it?
Ryan Fenton
Trump depends on Twitter to reach his masses of useful idiots.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Who really cares what he has to say about anything?
Twitter is a colossal cesspool and no amount of regulation or non-regulation, internal or external, will fix it. I long for the day when Tweets weren't newsworthy.
There is no law preventing them from filtering content, and it is their platform.
I'm sure he's perfectly fine with the government regulating social media, and the press for that matter.
Things will be full of the correct facts then... just like in China and North Korea.
And Jones was fine for years until he started doing borderline incitement to violence. It doesn't help that he caters to an extreme right wing base that's been shown to act on the kind of crazy conspiracy theories he specializes in.
BTW, does anyone else think in the "two minutes of hate" from 1984 when watching Jones rant? Serious, that creeped me out more than anything he's done (yes, more than the references to blood libel whenever he criticized someone Jewish).
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you're welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGEsN1v9cZA
This coming from an administration that justifies ending of net neutrality, on first amendment grounds (the ISP company's 1st Amendment rights, not yours).
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander.
Oh yes, please lecture us on how a 'conservative' government administration should regulate private industry. But oh, shut down all those lousy newspapers that are saying such mean things about you. Gotta toughen up those libel laws!
Dumbfuck.
The shit will hit the fan, and the Tech Left will loose out. That's right folks regulation is coming, you cannot shadow ban all the republicans on Twitter, without it blowing up in your face. This goes for FB Google, and Youtube. (google owned) I am very happy to see this finally coming to a head. Time to pop the Tech left like a ripe pimple. The Angry Cat.
Twitter should go down in flames for giving a platform to that crazy, traitorous, pussy-grabbing, confederate nazi.
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
Republicans view private companies as being free to do what they want, that they are subject to the free market deciding what is right and wrong. So for Trump to say that it is very dangerous when Twitter makes its own decisions is 1. anti-Republican, and 2. inviting government regulation.
Republicans (including Trump): if you want platforms to allow unfettered hate speech from the right, and even to censor left wing speech if so desired, go and start your own competing platforms. Let the free market decide. And stop being snowflakes.
He's 100% libertarian "hands off muh corporation" until he disagrees with the corporate stance, then he's "corporations can be told wut to do cuz Murica" - what a hypocritical douche you are Ken Doll lol.
If it were any other president, it would be worth debating this. However, President Trump is a compulsive liar, criminal and derides all content he doesn't like by calling it "fake news". Twitter should have booted him long ago but refused to do so because it would hurt their business.
I have no sympathy for sources of disinformation.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
The Left: "The internet is a public utility, and Service Providers have no right to control what content we see on their platform!"
Also the Left: "Service Providers have an absolute right to control what content is allowed on their platform!"
The Right: "The internet is NOT a public utility, it is a business tool for commerce, and you have no free speech on private platforms!"
Also the Right: "Businesses on the internet have no right to censor speech on their platforms!"
No wonder we're going to hell in a handbasket...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
https://xkcd.com/1357/
But its OK for Captain Covfefe to threaten newspapers he does not like with closure.
Sargent BoneSpurs is just scared that if they ban actual fake news, he is a goner .
If social media wants to shadow ban and curate posts then they are, in effect, publishers deciding who gets to say what on their site. Meaning they should be held liable for defamatory statements and can be sued for libel and slander they allow to occur.
If they are a platform that is open to the public, but do not curate and hide posts they don't agree with then they should enjoy the protections of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA).
What will happen is the government will decide they no longer qualify for 230 protection and the flood gates open. All the racist, awful posts on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are now open for law suits against those companies. They will quickly back pedal and try to unscrew what has happened, but it will be too late.
Millions of class action lawsuits from people that have been subjected to online harassment, libel and slander from social media. Jack and Zuckerberg know this and they are trying like hell to avoid getting hit.
The ACLU should be all over this.
Twitter is censoring content at the demands of their owners Alwaleed bin Talal and the state of Qatar. Those anonymous "angel investors" that Silicon Valley celebrated having were the state sponsors of al-Qaeda.
Twitter is censoring content for the state of Qatar. Wikipedia's advisory board is packed with partisan Democrats and Alwaleed bin Talal's people and people working for the UAE and HSBC. Those anonymous "angel investors" that Silicon Valley celebrated having were the state sponsors of al-Qaeda.
The question boils down to, can a platform control comments in order to push an agenda
No, the question boils down to whether a platform can establish minimum standards for behavior. Nobody would bat an eyelid if a bar bouncer kicked out a shit-talking asshole. Twitter is no different.
Its not like there aren't plenty of other places to go. Jones has his own website and ahole plebs who can't afford their own website, go to gab.ai or stormfront or whatever.
To answer your question, conservatives are worried they are being pushed off various social media platforms (which they are). But liberals are also leaving the same platforms, sometimes also pushed out (like the Antifa group from England that Facebook tossed) or self-selecting out like Wheaton, because they do not believe enough people are being tossed off the platform... so there is some balance as the most extreme people end up leaving on either side, more balance than most are willing to admit.
To respond to what you were actually thinking through, yes Antifa/Wheaton kinds of people and Jones are indistinguishable to me. People here claim Jones called for violence - I don't know for sure as I never watched anything but humorously re-edited clips of Jones. However if so it would place Jones very low on the "incites violence" scale compared to nearly the entirely of the left which has thousands of people marching in streets with banners showing "Others" being assaulted by force and literally punching (or more accurately bludgeoning) anyone they perceive as against AntiFa GroupThink.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
So it's no wonder they're caught more often in automated filters or by fact checking investigations.
Trump is just miffed because lying is his stock in trade, his shtick. And now he and his cronies are being caught at it.
Serves then right for decrying all the fake news. Turns out they generate most of it.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
The president can suck my bung hole....
Thanks... the Hacker
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
Authoritarians are so thirsty for liberal approval. They are always whining that athletes and hollywood types with political opinions should just STFU but they embrace d-listers like scott baio, reagan, sonny bono and trump like they are the second coming. And when Kanye runs his mouth without thinking, they rush to kiss his ass too.
Even the dead-eyed Dana Loesch of the NRA wanted to be in hollywood but got rejected and had to settle for making propaganda videos instead.
Platforms like this quickly get overrun with spam. Any measures that deal with spam eventually move to dealing with spam created by action groups.
I totally agree with both statements.
One man's censorship is another man's garbage collection - it's only when it gets applied unfairly or unevenly that it becomes a real problem.
I also agree with this, the problem is that it will always end up being applied unfairly eventually if it's the company doing the blocking.
I think the best approach is to treat it like email - anyone can send anyone email. But I also never see spam anymore because spam blocking tools at various levels have gotten really good.
To me, I'd rather have a platform like Twitter that never removed any content or posters unless legally required to.
Then, have a great API to allow third party readers where I could customize how I liked to read, who I wanted to follow and exactly what kinds of posts I even wanted to see. Then tools would naturally develop where the majority of people would be able to shut out spam themselves with no aid from the company. The Bia on blocking would then be per-user, not per-company.
Twitter itself as a platform is a great start for something like that since it's inherently a white list, where I only read things from people I selected to follow - but even more than that because the communication itself is pretty limited so spam can't be very effective. All it needs to be great again (yes I guess I did imply that we could could Make Twitter Great Again) is to fully open an API and embrace third party clients.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
When the King speaks all will obey. This is the TrumpublicanPutinPuppet version of freedom.
It's almost like you, and whoever moderated you up, didn't bother to read the last half of my post whatsoever...
To make it REAL CLEAR for the mouth-breathers out there, I am 100% against government regulation of platforms like Twitter, and most things in general for that matter. As far as free speech goes though I don't believe in banning any speech.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
There is nobody more knowledgeable nor more of a stable genius to guide the American people through all the Fake News. Whatever 45 says IS THE Truth, everything else is FALSE.
The page you linked to mentions that Brandenburg (1969) held that political speech which may be politically dangerous is protected. That's because the first amendment was written with political speech in mind. Brandenburg in no affects the proverbial "shouting fire in a crowded theater".
Just five years later, SCOTUS held in Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974), there is "no constitutional value in false statements of fact".
Falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater would be a "false statement of fact" for which there is little protection, and the government has a strong legitimate interest in protecting from deaths and injuries from trampling and other injuries caused by such an action.
This is what Trump actually said from the Reuters The folks who did the interview.... ""I won't mention names but when they take certain people off of Twitter or Facebook and they're making that decision, that is really a dangerous thing because that could be you tomorrow,"" Trump said. https://www.reuters.com/articl...
Trump has no ability to self-regulate and he fears those who do.
On a more serious note, this isn't like the IRS targeting scandal. This is "you've spent three years encouraging your supporters to be abusive and so it shouldn't be a surprise that some of them are getting blocked." Social media companies might have a leftward bias in their content blocking but people like Alex Jones are hardly the test case to use.
I don't normally like the "point by point" refutation, but this post is so completely whacked... here goes:
> with no bases in truth
"Truth" (or lack of) is not a reason for censorship. Deleting things based on truth is subject to all kinds of bias and misrepresentation.
> Alex Jones pushed violent attacks on innocent individuals
Then he should be arrested. Was he arrested? I'm now wondering if your assertion is, in fact, true. The legal system has very explicit rules on what is legal speech, and a public forum for appeal with well-known rules and restrictions.
> To defend him makes you a nutter,
Insults are not arguments. I'll bet you're a liberal - because insults are all they have.
> giving him das boot.
"Das Boot" was a movie, originally in German ("The Boat", about a German U-boat during WWII), and you use the phrase as a pun of "the boot", meaning "to kick out".
I don't see how this works in any comedic, ironic, or literal way, unless you're casting the social media as nazis? Which I suppose they are, but it looks like the opposite of what you intended.
> Kendall happily defends traitors and dangerous people
A jab at Trump and Kendall. People are waking up to the fact that extreme rhetoric is simply noise in the public dialog. We get it, you're full of hatred, you have to throw insults because you have no arguments.
> [Kendall, Trump] so long as ideologically they agree with him. Otherwise he's for the opposite.
Someone who defends a position they agree with, and argues against a position they disagree with is... what?
If you have an argument that's not based on emotion, I'd like to hear it. Saying that social media "can run their business the way they want" is starting to wear thin, as social media invited everyone to participate and built a huge base and following, only to suppress certain viewpoints in the run-up to an election.
The term "anti-American" has been tossed around lately, but actually that previous sentence 'kinda fits. By suppressing one political viewpoint, those companies are using their built-up power to influence the results of an election.
On the face of it, that seems anti-American.
What's the fucking point?
The thing that keeps me on Technical twitter, is I can have this stream I follow with a lot of little minor events to keep up on easily - like releases of some development tools or software I care about, or some interesting technical tips for stuff I work with. Similarly I also at times come across some hard-won technical knowledge that I throw out on Twitter - maybe it helps someone, maybe it doesn't but at least it's out there in a lot of other heads for someone to remember in the future.
That's why I don't think Twitter will really die, because fundamentally it's very useful.
Now a replacement platform could very well arise because of Twitter missteps. Mastodon sadly ain't it because of the fragmentation of topic and moderation levels, and I've seen nothing else even close (I even foolishly paid for app.net when it opened to try and promote an alternative, that's how I learned a pay platform will never work).
All a successful Twitter replacement would need to do is:
A) Be free and ad supported.
B) Supply an extensive API along with decent default clients for most platforms.
C) Censor 0 people ever unless legally required to remove posts.
D) Allow editing of posts for five minutes, and allow others to view edit history for any edited post.
People are desperate to find something like Twitter that is not Twitter, so do all of the good things Twitter is seemingly not willing to do. If nothing else you may even just show Twitter how they are supposed to be and they course correct back to a platform everyone would enjoy again.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
antifa is the American equivalent of soccer hooligans. Just a bunch of Angry men. I haven't seen a lot of Black Lives Matters violence since, well, the entire point of the movement is to _stop_ violence, but I suppose it's possible. Again, if any such exists they should be prosecuted as normal.
I really, really wish those antifa schmucks would stop already, btw. The Left is way, way worse at violence than the right. They're not as well organized (what with being an anti fascism movement and all) and they're mostly just being baited by the right wing so they can be used as an excuse to crack down. Meanwhile we spent $100k a piece protecting the right wing protesters...
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You don't trust the government so you elected trump to ruin it. So I wouldn't use the broken american political system, where they are trying to elect the least qualified person possible
Your post didn't make any sense to me. How is Trump not the most qualified person to ruin government? Pretty obviously he was the most qualified of any candidate, including the ones in the primaries.
I have seen and dealt with lots of governments in other countries thanks. The UK alone owes me about 3k pounds which they basically stole from me just because I shipped an expensive lens through that country. So I agree with the old quote that says "America has the worst form of government, except for all the others" - America has nothing like the extreme corruption and sheer malice you see in every other government across the globe, in countries small and large.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
the left wing is about policy and outcomes, not ideals. The goal of the actual left, e.g. the Bernie Sanders left and the Justice Democrats (google it) is to get away from pointless identity politics used by _both_ sides to distract from the very real issues faced by the working class. Right wing economics have failed the working class time and again, and the sooner we can put this nonsense aside and focus on things like universal healthcare and college, ending the 8 wars (and counting) we're in, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure and getting a decent life for everyone then better.
That said, our country has centuries of racial oppression and that shouldn't be ignored. But we also shouldn't ignore the reason for that oppression: money. Specifically racism in America was used to create an underclass that not only could be exploited for cheap labor but would stratify the working class into easily managed groups that the ruling class can control. Universal healthcare has gone up for a vote 3 times in American history (not counting Hilary's non-starter in the 90s and the nationalized version of "Rhomneycare" that is the ACA) and all 3 times it was shot down because the racists wouldn't let it cover races they didn't like and the progressives insisted we cover everyone.
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and Alex Jones. Most of the Blood libel stuff is down now. It's preserved on Secular Talk's channel though. For the "hate in" stuff just about anything Steve Colbert made fun of will do since it tends to be the sillier stuff Jones did, but I don't really find it silly given the context (2.5 million really angry white with guns who've been crapped on economically for 20+ years watching his show every week...).
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Twitter isn't going to block you as you bring in too much money for them. They care more about the money than their principals.
The first thing I agree with Trump on.
By the way, they aren't writing the content, the users are. If you are too stupid to block anyone you don't belong on Twitter.
in most jurisdictions. California has some limited protections. But there's another different. Jones didn't get banned because twitter doesn't agree with him. They got banned because he was inciting violence, repeatably and to an audience that is known to act on that incitement from time to time (e.g. Abortion clinics). He violated a completely reasonable set of terms and conditions.
The equivalent would be if those guys went to the baker and asked for a cake with "Kill Bob Mueller" written on it and also the baker knew the cake was going to be the center piece to a convention of gun enthusiasts who routinely discussed assassinations...
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The 1st Amendment of the US Constitution just keeps the government from censoring your speech. Since social media is not the government, they can do whatever they want: allowing you to speak unfettered, closing your account, censoring what you say. There's NOTHING illegal or wrong about that; it's only a problem when the government starts censoring your speech.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
> How likely is it that a guy who incites his own mob to attack the press is a supporter of free speech?
Antifa is left wing. Oh wait, you weren't talking about times the press was actually injured, were you?
> Or a guy who makes a list of former intelligence officers who he's going to punish based upon whether or not they criticized him?
What right does anyone have to a security clearance, exactly? Oh, right, none. And did you already forget he's the guy who spied on Congress? It wasn't that long ago you guys were out to fire him. Does that count as Gell-Man amnesia? It feels related.
> Fuck you. Trump doesn't care fuck-all about free speech. Remember how envious he was of how Kim Jong Un could get everyone to sit up and pay attention?
That's... not even an argument. As expected from a leftist, you guys forgot how to craft them quite a while ago, which is why you can get people to believe that you lost to Russian memes on Twitter or that Trump had prostitutes pee on Obama's former bed.
Taking Alex Jones down was his own fault. Inciting violence has long been considered an exception to free speech.
Also, corporations can regulate whatever they want internally. Itâ(TM)s called capitalism. When the government does it, itâ(TM)s unconstitutional.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
for the people to seize the means of media production!
Criminal Trump has said he's the only one alowed to censor the media. If you don't obey him, he will pay Russian criminal friends to force you.
Funny how the anti-socialists co-op non-government platforms, smells like fascism.
n/t
Hundreds of people screaming "Fuck Alex Jones! He was inciting violence!" and not a single person can provide a source. How are folks this gullible? At any point in time someone could be banned on a site where user comments are king, and all that company has to do is say "Banned for lewd comments towards a minor" and you chuckle-fucks would eat it up like it's candy!
Anyway, it's not like they're turning the frogs gay or anything......
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/03/100301151927.htm
An atrazine-induced female frog (a genetic male) is shown (bottom) copulating with an unexposed male sibling. This union produced viable eggs and larvae that survived to metamorphosis and adulthood. Yet, because both animals were genetic males, the offspring were all males.
Big social media sites are the public square for a very narrow few. Yes, they get headlines, but as people start to realize that they are not the public square they thought, their power and threat diminish.
It is only a matter of time before Facebook and Twitter are eclipsed by the next wave.
Wake up and move on. Most of the world could care less what wither Kim Kardashian or Donald Trump Think.
There is evidence that neither think at all and that evidence is clearly posted on Twitter every day.
They are entertainers and nothing more.
Such a funny guy, one week hes complaining that news papers are talking shit, next week hes complaining that conservatives aren't allowed to talk shit.
On Saturday, Trump argued that social media companies are "closing down the opinions" of conservatives
That idiot is just worried that Twitter will follow it's own terms of service and ban Trump for violating them.
It *is* dangerous for private parties to have freedom. They might do things you don't like with it.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
1. Hate speech isn't free speech.
2. Holding up another countries flag and declaring actions, on another countries soil, is treason to the soil of that country.
Sorry, but there is no reason to argue those 2 points above, unless you are a bigot or against human progress.
Science, Fact, I'm done, mic drop.
How funny is it that the only analogue you could find to the President of the United States' behavior is a group of anarchists.
Tells you everything you need to know about Trump.
You are welcome on my lawn.
...It's even more dangerous when governments step in and regulate all content.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
If he regulates them like a utility. But if he does some bullshit that results in another loop hole that somehow results in the oligarchs getting more money,then he's a piece of shit.
There was a time when the Left would have had a massive cow about huge media companies literally colluding to suppress unapproved points of view.
I see, these people are just right wing by name only. they just do what the lobbyists want.
it's the rest of America that's skewed to the right of the Overton window. America started a move right when Bill Clinton took the Whitehouse by shifting the Democratic party to the right with a new breed of socially liberal economically right wing "corporate" Dems. The Republicans needed to preserve a separate brand and moved right themselves, and, well, here we are.
Meanwhile the rest of the civilized world has Single Payer healthcare, robust safety nets and environmental regulations and generally better standards of living (I know, I know, I can already hear the shouts of "But Venezuela". All I can say is you try being a tiny nation just who recently clawed its way out of third world status and having the largest government in the free world slap you with sanctions while your only natural resource plummets in value and let me know how that turns out for you).
What I'm saying is, leave your echo chamber and enter the world at large. Democratic Socialism (not to be confused with fascism that occasionally prints a copy of the Communist Manifesto) is working for the rest of the world very, very well. There's no shortage of empirical evidence for that. Meanwhile I'll refer you to the smoldering crater that is Kansas' economy and education system, the aftermath of the Great Depression and the 18th century robber Barrons for what happens when capitalism is left to it's own devices. The facts just aren't on the side of the right wing. If you're going to hang out on a science and technology focused forum you should do your own investigation and then recognize that.
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I guess forum moderation is on its way out.
Facebook is entirely free to edit as they see fit, but they need to disclose it up front, not buried on page 79 of the EULA or whatever.
A simple banner or subtitle would do:âFacebook is a loyal servant of the All-Glorious State.â That would tell you all that you need to know about what is allowed and not allowed on the sight.
On the other side you have âoeA subdivision of Koch Industries.â And so forth. Itâ(TM)s when they claim to be impartial and then are proven not to be that gets people riled up.
Last year, facebook and twitter were frequently showing in their carefully curated top news streams popular posts with memes titled "how to punch a nazi" usually showing a woman punching a man in the nose (presumably the nazi).
These posts were usually accompanied by comments about how satisfying it would be to punch a nazi, encouragements that you should do so any time you see one, because it's the right thing to do, and also what they consider a punchable nazi. Hint: everyone who agrees with Trump's policy about illegal aliens, the wall or generally anyone agreeing with Trump (although lately the definition has been expanded to include MAGA hats and other such violence).
The logic went like this - these people are against illegals, so they don't want them here, so they're nazis, and nazis killed lots of people, so this is the same thing as violence and wanting to kill them all and probably worse - so any such person is clearly free game for punching.
I am amazed how many self-proclaimed intellectuals propagated these memes inciting violence against people simply over their opinion or sometimes not even, and congratulating each other about how much more intelligent they are than the masses that don't know what's good for them.
I think its "very dangerous" to give the president unregulated access to twitter.
There has never been a public platform free from moderation, so how would you know if it's dangerous or not?
There have always been laws which create a necessity for censorship. For example... starting a Facebook page for paedophiles and publishing child pornography would clearly be in breach of the laws of most countries on this planet and rightly so. Regardless of what Facebook's stand is on censorship they would be obliged to pull this content. And from they obvious example you can move into more grey areas such as content promoting terrorism, racial hatred etc etc...
I'm absolutely fine with Facebook, Twitter having a system for removal of content which doesn't meet a certain standard for civil discourse. I don't even care what that standard is, as long as it's applied consistently and fairly. If your shit doesn't meet their criteria for civil discourse, simple, find another platform. These companies should be completely free to choose the kind of discourse on their platforms, if people don't like it, they'll move to another platform.
"Twitter Says It is 'Very Dangerous' When President Trump Sends Out Own Content"
aaaaaaa
"These platforms are as critical as other utilities like Electricity or Gas"
How is twitter or facebook as important as power or gas? Many people (myself included) don't use these sites and are probably better off for it. Power and water and gas and the like are important to staying alive - facebook, not so much.
The platforms should face a certain amount of regulation because the kind of discrimination common carrier status is designed to protect against should not happen. If you run a business or a media platform there are certain ways it should not be legal to discriminate, except in very limited cases. If you run twitter, you should not discriminate against someone based on whether they are Democrat or Republican, for example. But it's okay to discriminate against someone if, for example, they start doxxing people, or encouraging others to commit suicide. Harmful speech is a little harder because if you don't define it carefully it turns into censorship of content you don't like rather than merely insisting on minimum standards, but at some point (e.g. someone is using your platform to share demonstrably false conspiracy theories with millions of followers) you have a moral obligation to either block their access to the platform or to correct their blatant exploitative fearmongering.
You simply do not get Trump - he would NEVER shut down the press since they are always guaranteed to overreact and make his point for him.
Trump accuses them of hiding the size of the crowds at his rallies, and the leftists in the press make a point of not showing the crowds, and then his followers plaster the pics over the internet and the press is outed as having been exactly as dishonest as Trump said they would be.
Trump accuses them of taking his words out of context, and then they get in a tizzy and in trying to make him look as bad as possible they quote him out of context and then his followers put the full context including unedited recordings on the net and the press gets outed as having been exactly as dishonest as Trump said they would be.
Trump paints the press as uniformly partisan and against him, and they go crazy and launch and publicize a nation-wide coordinated hate-fest against Trump in which even those who do not participate (like the LA Times) explain how much they hate Trump as part of explaining their supposed non-participation, and people rapidly see that Trump was right.
The "mainstream" press are such an excellent foil for Trump than he would NEVER shut them up. He WANTS them attacking him. He plays them like a fiddle. They're as blind with rage as an angry bull in the ring with a bull fighter. Any time they calm down, he puts out just the right tweet and they go insane again, lying and flinging hate, and simultaneously damaging their own reputations while energizing Trump's base. The best thing the press could do would be to calmly and honestly report the news - but that's something Trump can be certain they will never do; he watched them all perform analingus on Obama for eight years and Trump knows exactly how far in the tank they are for the Democrat party and how irresistibly hostile they are towards him.
They're just taking action against the fake tweets. trump should like that, right?
He just inserts "politically" every now and then when ranting about coming for "them" and how he'll kill them and destroy them, politically, while politically making gun shooting gestures and saying that they need to do something physically to remove these literal satanic monster child molesters and remove them from existence, politically.
If ISIS said that they wanted to behead the decadent west, politically, they'd all notice how the "politically" was BS.
And finally, nobody cared about what was LITERALLY said when Kathy Gifford held up a FAKE HEAD that looked like trump's decapitated head. Oh, no, it WAS a call to kill the president THEN and an abhorrent call to violence. Despite not even a word being said.
And if they don't WANT to lend you money for your Nazi fluffing site then why should they be forced to loan you that money?? Jones has plenty of cash. So does trump. Stick them for a loan.
I remember when everybody was allowed to have their piece, and it was up to the individual to decide what he/she believed. Now we want these places to curate what we hear.
Remember folks, it will eventually swing the other way- And they are not going to forget about how we all decided it was ok to silence them.
Yes, they were planning how to incite violence and shoot dead people, telling them how to pack their guns and get them to the protest.
One side punches you, you shoot guns at them, and suddenly it's all about "what about the punching?!?!?!?!?"
Fcking snowflake.
And it's the internet. Apart from China and a few other places that may firewall your location off, you reach everywhere with even your self hosted website.
Trump says anyone wanting to promote views other than his should be shut down and excluded from the intertubes, but his abuse and rants should be glorified for he is the God of Covfefe!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
To me, I'd rather have a platform like Twitter that never removed any content or posters unless legally required to.
That is great for you, but not for Twitter.
What if Twitter doesn't agree with posts, should a private entity be forced to spend resources distributing a message they don't support?
How far should such a rule go? Can I force my neighbor to hand out ISIS fliers? Would him refusing to do so be a violation of my free speech?
Are not some right wing billionaires buying up leftist newspapers and websites, in order to shut them down? Wasn't it Gothamist that got closed this way? And the koch brothers shut down a news outlet promoting local buses? Amirite??
You orange faced, treasonous, sack of shit.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Isn't it strange how the Left are always the ones trying to silence the Right, and isn't it strange how the Left never want to debate the Right and prove them wrong (probably because they can't). This is how the Left have always operated, silencing dissent.
"The denial of free speech is the first act of tyranny."
So, what we have is the president outright admitting that neo-nazis, racists, victim harassers, and various hate groups are all part of his political right-wing. That THIS is his Republican Party. White supremacists are his base is what he is admitting here. Because that is the overwhelming majority of who is being ousted from these platforms. He is also trying to frame this as an attack on American "Christian" values, and that Christians are next, which means he is speaking to those extreme Christians who are also racists.
It also plays will to his Russian base, who are also likely taking a hit from this wave of platform scrubbing.
Sig
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars
"Very dangerous when companies like Twitter regulate their own content"
I agree, and enabling the FCC to allow ISP's regulate their own content is ok?
"The paradox of tolerance was described by Karl Popper in 1945. The paradox states that if a society is tolerant without limit, their ability to be tolerant will eventually be seized or destroyed by the intolerant. Popper came to the seemingly paradoxical conclusion that in order to maintain a tolerant society, the society must be intolerant of intolerance. "
Swap "society" with "social network". Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Look, I caught some chap using his twitter account to personally attack dozens of individuals, ethnicities, nations and demographic groups and then go on to tweet what appeared to be a credible threat to start a nuclear war.
I received a message thanking me for notifying them but that this "does not violate our community standards."
What community standards?
Too bad anti-trust enforcement can't break up oligarchical style collusions that work to squelch viewpoints. The broken-off pieces and parts would likely still collude. But, at least for appearances sake, anti-trust measures *should* be used on the biggest platform on the planet - Google.
You must realize the world has only three significant search engines - Google, Yandex, and Baidu. Yandex and Baidu are of a lower value for English speakers, so Google is really the single search engine for English speakers all over the world. All other major search engines take feed from Google, so don't count as alternatives (unless you like the interface better for some reason).
Is anti-trust enforcement needed? Like on steroids. But - nothing is ever heard from the gatekeepers. Is that interesting, or what? Since when is a single supplier not monopoly?
Typical search results are filtered by 2000x. How could the world *not* be mind controlled by this? Other platforms are not following Google's lead.
Media said Jones beat up a kid - ok, then I ask the SAME question he did: Where is your proof in video? Answer = it doesn't exist!
* There's your "FINE MAINSTREAM MEDIA" newscorp owned (there used to be TONS of major media outlets, now there is only a handful, mostly ALL OWNED by newscorp - your "fine editors" (editing away TRUTH & FACT for made up LIES for THEIR AGENDA to stir up & steer SHEEPLE like you...)).
APK
P.S.=> Amazing how you got a +5 for your bullshit Darinbob (not - how many sockpuppets do you keep here to game the "moderation system" that's easily gamed that way?)... apk
and the phrase "far left leaning" is kind of silly. You can't "Lean" far left, you either are or you aren't far left.
As for CA, they elected Arnold Schwarzenegger until he ran out of terms and have large swaths of rich, right wing areas. They couldn't even get single payer through. I'd hardly call them left wing let alone far left.
Mobile companies are phone companies. False dichotomy / common carrier. Twitter moderates their content. They lose common carrier and also gain responsibility for that content. If they know someone on their forum is a clear and present danger they have a legal responsibility to report them and remove them.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Big Giant Orange Head "concerned" that his lies are identified as such, and pulled from social media! BGOH cannot conceive of any circumstance in which his gilded utterances are treated with anything but fawning praise, his head explodes, and the crowds go wild!!!
FOSTA-SESTA now holds site operators criminally liable for the posts of any users that "may be related to sex trafficking". How long until congress pushes through a bill that holds site operators liable for user posted content that incites acts of violence or spreads hate (or that Donald Trump just doesn't like)?
Why don't the Republicans start their own Twitter-like service catering to their needs.
They could call it Whtter (the diacritic is to denote that it should be pronounced as 'whiter', also so that it can be trademarked).
Trump is a one trick pony, all he knows how to do is to threaten or threaten to sue. I am so over him and his tactics/
Donald Trump said that it is "very dangerous" for social media companies like Twitter and Facebook to regulate the content on their own platforms.
Said the man who banned followers from his Twitter account.
Um, yeah.
Really? I could have sworn Trump was still allowed to post messages there!
Just highlights how the Alex Jones ban i working for the left's media outlets. Now anytime someone talks about the very real problem of tech firms shutting down conservatives, it makes it look like you are defending Alex Jones and no one will care.
> (collusion isn't actually even a crime)
Collusion is the descriptive word the news media has settled on to cover many potential illegal actions by the Trump campaign, which could range from aiding and abetting (18 USC 2) to conspiracy per se (18 USC 371) to conspiring to violate several potentially applicable laws like: 18 USC 1030—fraud and related activity in connection with computers; 18 USC 1343—wire fraud; or 52 USC 30121—contributions and donations by foreign nationals. Also, 18 USC 2381—for, contrary to a widespread belief that there must be a declared war, the Justice Department as recently as 2006 indicted for “aid and comfort” to our enemies, the form of collusion better known as treason. Collusion is the perfect word to cover such crimes, pejorative and inclusive.
-- What Is Collusion? Is It Even a Crime?, POLITICO Magazine, July 12, 2017
So, what's the alternative? Having government regulate all media, social and otherwise? The US government can't even regulate it's own spending much less the competence of politicians and public office holders.
What Trump and his followers don't seem to grasp is that when the press, or social media or blog writers are criticizing the government they are doing their job.
A government that cannot withstand criticism isn't much of a government.