Trump Accuses Social Media Firms of 'Silencing Millions' (reuters.com)

U.S. President Donald Trump accused social media companies on Friday of silencing "millions of people" in an act of censorship, but without offering evidence to support the claim. From a report: "Social Media Giants are silencing millions of people. Can't do this even if it means we must continue to hear Fake News like CNN, whose ratings have suffered gravely. People have to figure out what is real, and what is not, without censorship!" Trump wrote on Twitter, not mentioning any specific companies. Trump also criticized social media outlets last week, saying without providing proof that unidentified companies were "totally discriminating against Republican/Conservative voices." Mr. President's Friday remarks comes days after he expressed concerns over Twitter and Facebook regulating the content on their own platforms. He found such practice "very dangerous."

Comments

Old man yells at cloud

[JoeyRox]

https://i.imgur.com/nnwVNui.png

He is not wrong tho

[Anonymous Coward]

regardless of your opinions, he is right. of course they have the right to do so, but people are being silenced

Re:He is not wrong tho

[DCFusor]

Take away their safe harbor protection, since they are no longer one. If they curate, it's no longer just the comments of the participants, it's now "journalism" and things like libel apply...which would of course, shut down all the people on the "other side" from the ones they're silencing as well, and we could go back to kitty pix and meals and platitudes....in peace.

Re:He is not wrong tho

[Narcocide]

If it was actually people being silenced by the millions instead of just astroturf bots, he would have a point.

Re:He is not wrong tho

[jellomizer]

The real problem is everyone is talking but no one is listening. So to be heard they talk louder and try to be more shocking to get attention. The one who gets attention is listed to. But only the most outrageous arguments are being heard, so for those who oppose those ideas will either go as far in the other direction or just not listen causing such escalation. From Free Speech of idea sharing, to trolling.

Free Speech has moved from long conversations of opposing ideas, to bumper sticker slogans.
Not all ideas will have a consensus, not all view points are right. But we have fallen into such tribalism we are seeing the opposite party as these evil goblins who are out to kill our way of lives.

Re: He is not wrong tho

[mi]

This is exactly why Usenet and IRC are — and always have been — a better alternative.

Re: He is not wrong tho

[farble1670]

Yes, and the truth of your statements is obvious by the fact that you offer no supporting evidence and are afraid to even post under a pseudonym. You might live in a world where saying shit makes it true, but the rest of us don't.

From the other side of the big pond

[Epeeist]

It looks as though you have someone who is completely out of control as president of your country.

Re:From the other side of the big pond

[barc0001]

Can you point to a Trump policy that fostered that growth? If you want him taking the credit for it, show his work. All the rest of us see is any time he tries anything on money policy or trade, there are stories in the paper a few weeks later about the sector he touched tanking or offshoring. Like Carrier, Harley Davidson, GE, various appliance makers, Coors raising prices because of aluminum tariffs, soybean farmers, tourism down, auto manufacturers in the Carolinas having slumps because of China's reverse tariffs, etc.

So maybe the economy as a whole is shambling along on momemtum like an oil tanker whose engine cut out an hour ago and is still cruising at 15mph, but many sectors of the economy sure do sound like they're getting hit with enormous unnecessary pain as a result of someone's mouth...

Re:From the other side of the big pond

[XXongo]

We have the strngest economy in 20 years. How you doin?

To be more specific, we had the strongest economic growth in 20 years under Obama, and Trump hasn't torpedoed the economy (yet).

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/economic-growth-remains-steady-falls-short-trumps-vows
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2018/05/17/trump-lags-behind-his-predecessors-on-economic-growth/
https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/jul/02/donald-trump/donald-trump-base-describing-gdp-growth-his-watch/

Re:From the other side of the big pond

[tlhIngan]

Can you point to a Trump policy that fostered that growth? If you want him taking the credit for it, show his work. All the rest of us see is any time he tries anything on money policy or trade, there are stories in the paper a few weeks later about the sector he touched tanking or offshoring. Like Carrier, Harley Davidson, GE, various appliance makers, Coors raising prices because of aluminum tariffs, soybean farmers, tourism down, auto manufacturers in the Carolinas having slumps because of China's reverse tariffs, etc.

So maybe the economy as a whole is shambling along on momemtum like an oil tanker whose engine cut out an hour ago and is still cruising at 15mph, but many sectors of the economy sure do sound like they're getting hit with enormous unnecessary pain as a result of someone's mouth...

Or how about Trump's rambling speech about "wildfires" and "higher wood costs coming from Canada" and all that? Lest it be forgotten, Trump put in a 20% tariff on softwood from Canada shortly after coming into power last year, so of course people are paying more for wood - he made it more expensive!

(American companies can supply about 75% of the domestic consumption, which is why Canada can still sell wood to the US despite the 20% tariff). And of course, if Canada has to sell 20% more expensive, aren't you going to raise your prices a bit to make extra profit?

I think part of the problem is Trump's upbringing. He's been speech trained, which is why you never see him use "ums" or "ahs" when he talks. (Compare and contrast to other world leaders - like Justin Trudeau or Obama and you'll see they pause, stutter and do "um, ah" a lot. Trump doesn't, because he was coached into not doing it). This is good if you want to seem eloquent as only commoners let their mouths run faster than their brains and have to pause with ums and ahs. Of course, the reality is, the speech training makes sure if you do run out of words, you end up repeating what you said.

So if you hear Trump say something like "This will make them very happy, they will be happy, and happy it will be" or some other non-content thing, that's the training kicking into action with Trump speaking instead of saying "ah, um, err". Likewise, when something fictional comes out, I can't help but think that's also something his speech training taught him or he grew into).

The only REALLY good news is that Trump generally doesn't follow up with his ramblings.

Hypocrite

[barc0001]

Trump: People should be able to say whatever they want on private platforms that have no connection to the government.

Also Trump: Football players should be fined and fired for daring to take a knee.

So in one case he wants the First Amendment to apply to private companies, and in the second wants to force silence on non-govermental employees.

As someone inside the US

[Gravis Zero]

It looks as though you have someone who is completely out of control as president of your country.

That seems like accurate description of the situation. Though upon closer inspection, we also have a chickenshit congressional majority who refuses to do their duty to keep the president in check.

Re:Only one person needs to be silenced,

[hey!]

I don't think DJT ought to be silenced. I think people should stop listening to him.

DJT is proof of Terry Pratchett's observation that hate and love are both forces of attraction, because people who hate DJT hang on his every word, even when it makes them sick with outrage and that makes his followers feel empowered, which of course shows the people who love him and the people who hate him are equally irrational.

Now I think Donald Trump is a miserable human being unworthy of the office. But I don't *hate* him; as far as I'm concerned if he goes back to being a successful reality TV star that's fine, because I don't feel compelled to pay attention to him. As long as he's president I do have to pay some attention to what he says, but since I don't hate him I have the luxury of not having to react emotionally to every bit of manipulative BS that comes out of his mouth.

Re:Bots and Fakes [Re: He is not wrong tho]

[RhettLivingston]

This can be verified very easily by digging into the followers of Trump's Twitter account - even by hand. Pick a few, look at their posts, likes, friends, etc., and you can easily see that a high percentage are fake accounts. The likes are very inconsistent, the friends are also fakes, the comments are generic or inconsistent with what is being commented on, etc. One funny aspect is that it is astonishing how many muslims allegedly follow him :)

I've been watching them for a couple of years now and have been impressed with the technological development of some of them. There is a large mix that makes it obvious that multiple organizations with differing resource levels and sophistication are creating them. The best though are much less detectable by an algorithm now, but they are still easily discerned by a real person.

Re:I'd propose a trade

[Darinbob]

Seems odd to me. CNN basically stopped being a news network a decade ago and instead have talking heads. I don't consider it left or right, it's pretty much bland.

Re:I'd propose a trade

[gtall]

Or worse, he actually believes what he's saying.

Fox and the rest of the right wingnuts regularly get taken to the cleaners by repeating what some yahoo says because it gins up ratings. Then the truth comes out, they look like idiots...except to their viewers who by that time have moved on to the next faux outrage Fox, et. al. are promoting. And there is a never ending supply of molehills they can masquerade as mountains. It's the closest thing yet to a perpetual motion machine....a perpetual propaganda machine.

Re: I'd propose a trade

[reiterate]

I dom't watch either, but my initial searches are showing CNN to be overwhelmingly more reliable and factual than fox news, like 4:1. Can they honestly be compared? Genuinely asking, personally I trust AP articles and that's about it.

Trump's entire administration is a distraction

[rsilvergun]

Trump is quietly dismantling Obamacare and with it protections for pre-existing coverage. He's cut the VA. 83% of his tax cut went to the 1% and it's causing run away inflation which the Fed will combat with rising interest rates making home, car and credit card debt more expensive for consumers. His Trade War has a net negative job effect and is itself a distraction from the effect of automation (we've doubled manufacturing output in 50 years while cutting 2/3rds of the jobs, we've lost more to robots than outsourcing).

I could go on. The beauty of Trump is that his outrageousness masks a lot of very real and very bad things that will hurt the American working class.

I'm listening

[rsilvergun]

I've listened to a lot of what comes out of the Trump Administration. Not Trump himself, his Administration. And it scares me. I'm most worried about how he's letting a challenge to the ACA's protection of pre-existing conditions go through. I've got friends and family who live and die by it. Nobody's talking about it. The lawsuit is quietly proceeding like nothing happened. Meanwhile his Supreme Court nominee will likely strike it down when it passes his desk. And on the off chance Bernie Sanders & the Dems get us Medicare for all ending the farce of our healthcare system once and for all that same nominee will likely kill it. In the process they might kill Medicare & Medicaid too...

The shouting isn't there because they're not being listened to. It's a distraction from what the ruling class is doing to the working class...