Slashdot Mirror
Twitter Says Trump Not Immune From Getting Kicked Off (politico.com)
Twitter legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde told Politico in an interview that President Donald Trump isn't immune from being kicked off the platform if his tweets cross a line with abusive behavior. "The social media company's rules against vitriolic tweets offer leeway for world leaders whose statements are newsworthy, but that 'is not a blanket exception for the president or anyone else,'" reports Politico. From the report: Trump regularly uses Twitter to heap abuse on his perceived enemies and at times raise the specter of violence, such as when he tweeted last year that if North Korean leaders continued with their rhetoric at the time, "they won't be around much longer!" Critics say the tweets violate Twitter's terms of service and warrant punitive action. Dorsey, who's due to testify before two congressional committees Wednesday about his company's content practices, said he receives notifications on his phone for Trump's Twitter account. But asked if he would weigh in personally to remove Trump from the platform, he declined to get into specifics.
"We have to balance it with the context that it's in," he said. "So my role is to ask questions and make sure we're being impartial, and we're upholding consistently our terms of service, including public interest." Amid controversy over Trump's tweeting back in January, Twitter posted to its corporate blog an unsigned explanation of its thinking around "world leaders" -- without calling out Trump by name. It said blocking such leaders or removing their tweets "would hide important information people should be able to see and debate." Dorsey tweeted the policy, saying "we want to share our stance."
"We have to balance it with the context that it's in," he said. "So my role is to ask questions and make sure we're being impartial, and we're upholding consistently our terms of service, including public interest." Amid controversy over Trump's tweeting back in January, Twitter posted to its corporate blog an unsigned explanation of its thinking around "world leaders" -- without calling out Trump by name. It said blocking such leaders or removing their tweets "would hide important information people should be able to see and debate." Dorsey tweeted the policy, saying "we want to share our stance."
in 3...2...1
How does Elon Musk not get kicked off for calling a guy a pedophile and a "child rapist"? What is the standard? Why isn't it being enforced?
People read those posts, and Twitter can show ads.
After all, twitter was having plenty of problems, Trump being on the platform probably brings them more users and ad revenue than anyone else.
So, if you threaten to destroy an entire nation or people, and you don't have the ability to carry out your threat, you get booted off Twitter. But if you make the threat and actually have a credible possibility of making it happen, then it's newsworthy and they leave it on.
Translation: We're scared of Trump and don't want to have to take action unless it's for something that no one will criticize us for.
Cowards.
Make a policy and stick to it, or don't have one.
I'll point out that President Trump as already had a federal judge declare that he can't block people on his Twitter feeds. Citing the idea that his account is a "designated public forum" after a number of journalist were blocked from tweeting at him. If that is the case how exactly could Twitter than turn around take that designated public forum away citing their own TOS?
Ultimately I don't know what that court case would look like, but I bet it will turbo charge the argument that social media needs to be regulated like a public unity or a common carrier.
Technically, he is not. They could kick him if they really wanted too. Removing him would be the worse thing they could possibly do. Probably the business equivalent of corporate suicide. Some Republicans are already barking about how much the tech. giants Twitter, Google, and Facebook control they have over speech. Limiting a sitting republican presidents speech on their platform might be enough to push them over the edge and have congress start regulating speech on internet platform.
I don't think any of us, pro trump or anti-trump, want that bunch of baboons attempting to police what we can say online. As much as we find Trumps tweets annoying, our best bet is just to ride this out. It will be over in a few years.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
Not that I don't think Twitter _could_ do that, it would be a big mistake for them. Does anyone have a second of doubt that Trump wouldn't switch to something like Gab, Mastedon, or whatever. And does anyone doubt he would mandate that @POTUS, and every Executive branch federal agency also move?
Sure that's not Twitter's main focus, but if every one of those went, and blacklisted Twitter... I'm not sure that would be good for Twitter's traffic numbers. But I am sure that it would be massive for whatever platform he moved to.
How can a service like Twitter be a "designated public forum" and be safe from unilateral blocking when the networks it is carried on are the private property of the telecoms on which they can carry whatever traffic that they please?
Have gnu, will travel.
>"Ultimately I don't know what that court case would look like, but I bet it will turbo charge the argument that social media needs to be regulated like a public unity or a common carrier."
Indeed it would. These social media platforms seem to want to control their content and yet at the same time being insulated from liability/responsibility for that manipulation. It can't really work both ways at the same time. Having their own USERS regulate and moderate and control the content is one thing (and not the "thing" they are doing). But, otherwise, they are not acting like a common carrier by censoring, ranking, labeling, and skewing things the way they like.
How can a service like Twitter be a "designated public forum" and be safe from unilateral blocking when the networks it is carried on are the private property of the telecoms on which they can carry whatever traffic that they please?
Hell if I know. You'd probably have to ask Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald, the person that made that ruling. Right now social media is trying to have it both ways when it comes to hosting content. They want to be treated like a common carrier when they don't want to be held responsible for content on their networks, but they also want the power to pick and choose what content is on their networks when it goes against their arbitrarily chosen terms of service.
T would complain 24/7 if booted. Do you really want to hear that all the time from him?
Table-ized A.I.
When the US government threatens actions against a belligerent country, that's a political policy. Agree or disagree, we all have the freedom to discuss the policy done in our name.
When a private individual threatens serious violence, that's a felony.
Then probably 50% or more of Twitter users should be tossed off the platform. It's just a cesspool. Much as any form of social media is, and this going back to the heady days of usenet.
These comments are just what I expected.
Would Twitter then be guilty of disobeying a federal court?
Perhaps in spirit, but probably not by the letter of the order. The ruling was specially aimed at the president himself. But that said Trump might be able to cite that order if he tried to take Twitter to court if he were to be banned by them.
I recall a judge saying it is unconstitutional to prevent a person from seeing trumps tweets (which prevents him from blocking the blue checks).
Without the outrage, retweets, and ad impressions Trump generates among the social justice crowd on Twitter, Twitter would go out of business. Making people angry is Twitter's business model. And Trump is a big part of that. So, the reason why Twitter hasn't kicked off Trump yet is simple: money.
Who says they need a "policy" to do anything? They're a public, for-profit corporation. They can decide whatever they want in terms of who they're going to publish, and who they won't. They don't need to create a list of rules and follow them. They make the rules. There's no expectation that it's some kind of "public square", except for idiots. They're a data gathering and marketing company. People who are calling it a "public square" need to get their heads out of their asses and go talk to some real people in the real world.
You're not a "customer" of the company. You're voluntarily giving up all of your "content". They owe you *nothing*.
I don't respond to AC's.
The judge ruled not that Twitter is a designated public forum, but that the replies section to the President's tweets are a designated public forum:
I don't know public forum law well enough to judge the decision (pdf) fully, but here's an attempt at an analogy:
A "meeting for hire" company starts running open to the public events where one person makes a statement and then anyone else can come in and discuss it with them and others. If the government starts paying them to run public events where it makes official government statements for public discussion, it can't bar specific people from entering and joining the discussion, as it is still a public forum even though they've hired someone else to set it up. At the same time, the "meeting for hire" company wouldn't be required to accept the government as a client.
And even Benedict Arnold got a pretty great sauce pairing named after him. I say go for it.
If a social media network banned a high-level government official, it would alert people to the fact that corporations are the real government and they can't be allowed to act as censors. They can eliminate peons that sound exactly like Trump by the millions, but his account is invincible.
Twitter could also ban Mother Teresa if her "tweets cross a line with abusive behavior" (probably somebody could pick a better example who is not dead).
This whole article is just to rile and trigger the idiots of all persuasions, apparently, judging by the equal amounts of stupidity displayed by both Trump lovers and haters in these Slashdot comments.
So with more and more judges being conservative, you are really advocating for the justice system to play a more active role in what can and cannot be broadcast...
HMM.
If Republicans were really smart they'd give you want you desire - good and hard.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
At least he mostly rotates his rants. If kicked off of Twitter, his favorite medium, I bet it would be the majority focus of his tirades.
Table-ized A.I.
Funny you should mention that. My old man was in ANTIFA. He was pretty hardcore about it, went all the way to Germany to kick their asses.
The media lock down?
WTF the most popular news show loves Trump. I would say they can't get enough of him though strictly speaking that's not true. That time he phoned up after rambling at the hosts for half an hour he pretty much did get kicked off.
But seriously you're delusional, since you seem to believe fox news somehow isn't part of the media.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
If Trump cannot block people on Twitter because that violates the first amendment, then I don't think that Twitter can block Trump either for the same reason. Double standards are bad for a democracy.
I'm from Finland. Every single media outlet reprints the spin from everything other than Fox when it comes to Trump. Every time I go to double check from the source and then compare to what actually was said/happened, I find that story printed is either a complete fabrication, a partial lie or a spin on facts. I'm yet to actually see a Trump related story that wouldn't be one of the three, which is frankly quite frightening as it tells about a massive bias in the media.
This is in everything from all major private networks to the state broadcaster. Latter has been a bit of a shock to me, because they used to do a lot of their own investigating before they put anything into news articles or analyses, which usually stripped a lot of bias from stories they would get from AP and such. Now it's translation slack-journalism with zero fact checking (if I'm generous, and just reprinting lies knowingly, which would be assuming systemic malice), as long as it's negative about Trump.
Take it for what you will.
Sure. And banning Trump from Twitter would be an exercise of free speech by Twitter.
Why are you against free speech? Are you a COMMUNIST? Why do you hate America?
"if his tweets cross a line with abusive behavior."
What, you mean apart from threatening another nation with a nuclear attack, or the numerous instances of boorish, abusive and just generally shitty behaviour? What do they count as "abusive behaviour", when it's clear he's not only crossed that line, but pole vaulted it while wearing a jetpack.
There's an often used word for this in Cockney rhyming slang: cobblers.
It's not you: I'm just this horrifically socially awkward with everybody.
Trump has repeatedly broken Twitter's code of conduct over the past three years and no one in the company gave a shit.
Rules are to be followed unless you're someone driving people to the platform. It is that simple.
Of course he's immune from being kicked off Twitter, he is the best advertisement they could ever possibly buy (which they have for literally zero dollars).
He has abused people.
He has fanned hate speech.
He spreads blatantly false facts.
He has urged people to kill other people.
He has posted multiple times trying to goad other countries into literally nuclear war.
But he's still here. Gotta bring in those advertising dollars!
"Well kids, you tried your best, and you failed. The lesson is, never try." -Homer Simpson
Do you think reprinting stuff *also* from Fox News would help make the news more accurace? ;)
Ezekiel 23:20
No, because Trump wouldn't be able to block anyone anymore.
Ezekiel 23:20
You think it's just stuff about Trump, but more likely you just noticed it there. I noticed a while ago that stories about technology (which I know a thing or two about) are usually also "a complete fabrication, a partial lie or a spin on facts." Somehow, I get the impression that a story about a local parade would probably fall into one of those three. Probably all of them at different points if the story is long enough. Not to long ago, I was involved as a volunteer in a STEM education event that was covered by local media. The reporter interviewed the main organizer of the event, and got his name wrong. Despite the fact that the event had a wireless microphone he could use so he referred to himself as "wireless Mike."
Normally, I'd just attribute these things to incompetence, but it seems like it happens so much, even that strains credulity. As the old saying goes, sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice.
"Save the whales, feed the hungry, free the mallocs" -- author unknown
The first amendment applies to the government, not to private entities or businesses. Twitter is certainly allowed to censor at will. The President is not.
Constitution 101.
Kicking Trump off Twitter would be the worst thing you could ever do. Please let me suggest a far more intelligent solution.
I propose that you don't silence Trump, you simply muffle him. Put him in a sound dampening box. Essentially, let him tweet all he wants...just don't publish most of them. Sure let a few go out now and then after review. And let a few other morons like Kanye West type folks see it and be able to reply so that Trump thinks he is getting replies. And show Trump metrics that he is getting thousands of views, retweets, and etc.
But it's all fake. With 90% of his tweets never reaching any ears. This is far more effective than banning. In fact, this would work great for all twitter trolls. Once identified, they are simply auto-censored. But they don't know it, cause a metrics show as the same, and few replies are let thru for reality's sake. (Think the Matrix, it can't be too perfect or they'll realize they've been silenced.)
If Trump got kicked off twitter, he would move to gab.ai, and millions, maybe tens of millions, of people would follow him there.
Twitter would not have stopped Trump. Twitter would have just shot themselves in the foot.
just...wow
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
> The first amendment applies to the government, not to private entities
Are you sure about that? I can cite several examples were government has regulated private industry.
One example is the tweet you responded to. The government - not twitter - decided that Trump could not block trolls.
This video cites several examples of government over-ruling such rights of private industry:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UgGY22bCMU&t=491s
You do know that you don't have to read his tweets, right?
Just checking ... sometimes I wonder about you guys ...
(Me, I got it covered, I don't read anybody's tweets ...)
Because it will be the end of Twitter.
Corporatism != Free Market
I'm from Finland. Every single media outlet reprints the spin from everything other than Fox when it comes to Trump. Every time I go to double check from the source and then compare to what actually was said/happened, I find that story printed is either a complete fabrication, a partial lie or a spin on facts. I'm yet to actually see a Trump related story that wouldn't be one of the three, which is frankly quite frightening as it tells about a massive bias in the media.
Why am I supposed to be believe that you are more competent than the reporters that you criticize?
There is a simpler and more likely answer than a vast global conspiracy by every media outlet in every country (except Russia) in the world to make Trump look bad, and that's explanation is that you really don't know how to fact check anything and instead your sources for "what really happened" are wrong. I've noticed that you didn't provide any examples of what the media said, and what you determined "really happened", or how you determined what was really "true"...
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I say kick Trump off of Twitter. It will be more polarizing than Nike featuring CK. PotUS doesn't need to have such a direct contact with the people. He shouldn't get news from social media either. His news should come from his intelligence agencies. This way they have hopefully been vetted for factual content. And Trump especially doesn't need social media. All he's done by using it is stick his foot in his mouth over and over.
This seems pretty simple, by taking Trump's account away, they are closing that public forum to everyone. Why can Twitter do that, it's because the first amendment can't force a private business to keep a forum open, but it can prevent the government from violating people's rights in the forum as long as it is open.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
I don't see a lot of calls for violence on the #antifa hashtag. Funny enough, most of the posts seem to be opposed to anti-fa (with a few leaning towards violence...
Here's a thought: Antifa is just a boogieman created by Fox News and other right wing media outlets to mask and excuse right wing violence with "Whataboutism".
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Throwing Trump off Twitter etc. would be as pointless as throwing almost anyone off. They get it wrong so often.
For instance, almost immediately in this thread. this comment, in part:
"when he tweeted last year that if North Korean leaders continued with their rhetoric at the time, "they won't be around much longer!" "
Do you not yet know how to speak Trump? You should. He's simple to understand. This comment, "they won't be around much longer!", certainly doesn't mean "I'm gonna bomb 'em ,dude!". It's reasonable to interpret it as "they risk a revolt when the world starts really, really sanctioning them". For instance.
But if his tweet was a threat of violence, then consider this scrap of a comment right here, a bit later:
"the full force of Mueller and US law on him like a ton of bricks"
A ton of bricks. Seems like a physical threat? Oh? Explain please, the language is plain and direct. Unless you choose to see nuance sometimes, and not others. Or scrap from a comment:
"Suck my nuts, moron."
Sexual abuse? Coerced? Of course not, it's just some infantile comment.
But to get further into misunderstanding Trump (and others), two quotes claiming to be from Bob Woodward's forthcoming book:
"Trump also suggested that Democrats had more power and influence within the Justice Department than Sessions.
Hopefully this is presented, in context, as a fairly direct statement, and one with a reasonable foundation. After all, he was newly elected than, and inherited a Justice Department in no way transformed from the Obama administration, so yes, lots of Democrats in positions of power and influence within Justice. Of course. Feel free to try and refute this. Facts and/or reasonable suppositions would be best, but don't let the lack of those stop you, for it hasn't before...
"Sessions responded with a rare rebuke of Trump, saying, "The actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations." "
This second quote is probably interpreted as a rebuke of Trump, as it is presented so. But Sessions could have been saying, in essence, "I won't let political considerations improperly influence the Department". Seems reasonable to me. Not even a rebuke, but both a reasonable and mandatory statement.
Oh, did you notice the turn of phrase "improperly influenced"? Think that one over. Over the past 14 years now. Do you see it yet? I doubt it, but don't give up so easily.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The administration could temporarily unlist twitter.com from DNS entries in the US and most other countries in the name of "national security". Making threats to block a head of state is not cool. Would any of you have been ok with Obama being taken off twitter?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
You know what is really a disgrace? A president under investigation trying to seat a supreme-court judge who has stated that a president is above the law.
You know what is really a disgrace? Trying to get a supreme-court judge seated while keeping a significant part of his record secret. What is there to hide?
You know what is really a disgrace? Refusing to even run confirmation hearings for a supreme-court judge because you're doing your utmost to sabotage any governing by a president. Especially when you come up with blatantly false 'precedents' to defend this.
Manufactured outrage about minor events is nothing compared to these.
At this point, Twitter benefits greatly from Trump utilizing the platform.
If Twitter does remove Trump - not only will they significantly piss off a significant percentage (20% ???) of users, whatever platform Trump utilizes next will experience a surge in popularity.
Twitter won't win in general public opinion from such a removal, either.
Of COURSE many people would love it. This country is quite polarized politically.
George Washington fought against England. Are you admitting that Trump is fighting against the U.S.?
Trump also believes that people should be required to pledge allegiance to the United States. Which is odd for a traitor.
(Or maybe... *gasp*... Trump just wants you to pledge allegiance to him, screw the country.)
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
If Trump cannot block people on Twitter because that violates the first amendment, then I don't think that Twitter can block Trump either for the same reason. Double standards are bad for a democracy.
in no way does that work backwards. Trump can't block people because of who he is as a government official. If he starts gramming he can't block people either. if he has email he can't block people. It's not a function of the social media. It's a function of the presidency. The same way we as a people are allowed to block politicians, social media can ban them.
Just another second banana
> The first amendment applies to the government, not to private entities
Are you sure about that? I can cite several examples were government has regulated private industry.
One example is the tweet you responded to. The government - not twitter - decided that Trump could not block trolls.
WHAT? No. The government didn't override the social media to say Trump can't block. They overrided Trump to say he can't exercise that as a public official. If you ground a child that's not you overriding the mall's freedom of speech to have your child as a customer. It's you overriding your child's ability to go to the mall.
Just another second banana
If Trump cannot block people on Twitter because that violates the first amendment, then I don't think that Twitter can block Trump either for the same reason. Double standards are bad for a democracy.
First amendment applies to government, not to a private company on his own infrastructure. Please don't talk about democracy before learning the ropes of it first.
Are they reporting on something someone said? Okay, then list how far away the person saying the thing is from the actual thing.
Example:
Harry Reid said, and I'm paraphrasing here, 'Someone told me that Mitt Romney has never paid taxes'.
The headlines read 'Mitt Romney has never paid taxes, says Senate Leader'.
Technically this is kind of true although they left our the 'Someone told me'. All of the news was about Mitt Romney not paying taxes. No one asked who might have said this complete false hood to Harry Reid. Was it Romney's accountant? That would be a story and the end of the accountants career. Was it an IRS agent? That would be a story and the start of the agents career as a Democratic martyr.
But trot out the canard that reality has a liberal bias.
Exactly. It isn't a restriction on twitter -- it is a restriction on govenment officials. Twitter can offer features but that doesn't mean officials can use them against the law.
Whether the ruling is correct or not, especially given the driving force of the suit likely wasn't really concern over speech but another attempt to hurt the president politically, is a separate issue.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Here's an interesting study about the press coverage of Trump's first 100 days in office.
Whenever the tone is this overwhelming negative, the press is going out of their way to make shit up. Like they did with Trump's 'animals' comment, for example, juxtaposing a notorious criminal gang for 'immigrants'.
There is a simpler and more likely answer than a vast global conspiracy by every media outlet in every country (except Russia) in the world to make Trump look bad
I know that's a bit of a strawman, when really much of media ownership is consolidated by major corporations who call the shots. However, in the study they noticed that the only time Trump receives positive coverage by all the press, is when he launched cruise missile strikes on a Syrian airbase. That alone ought to tell you something.
I'm tired of this "common carrier" concept -- oh boy! Another way to work around the First Amendment so government can control private speech!
Toss it, at least in situations like this. There is no limit to the amount of speech the Internet can carry, so any ultimately scarcity-based argument fails.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
These are restrictions on government officials using twitter, not twitter.
You want to argue government gets to slap a label on a private entity dealing with speech, and presto! No more first amendment, which includes the right not to say something, which both twitter and twitter's users have and use.
Given the motivation is not concern for speech, but to hurt a political opponent, it is even more disgusting and unconstitutional.
It's like adding "paper" to common carrier, so now all newspaper editorial pages must budget for opposing viewpoints or go to jail.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Technology stories is actually what got me started on not trusting the media about a decade ago. When you're actually educated and have worked in industries that are almost universally hated in the circles that appear to be producing overwhelming majority of journalists, you start seeing that things you read in the news outlets are sometimes diametrically opposed to reality.
No, I think it would be sufficient to go to their days of old, when you actually reported what was said, in context. And if there's an another story that you're translating as a core for your story, you also investigate and report on the known biases of the original author.
It's how journalism used to be conducted around here, at least in the state broadcaster. There's a reason why I'm in full support of paying the special tax to support it. I think it's necessary for a small neutral state like ours to maintain balanced reporting that doesn't just regurgitate the bias from any of the major empires we have to live between. Instead we need to be informed on what they're talking about, but in context of what's actually going on.
You can't even excuse this with progressivism. We don't get to vote on US legislators or executives. We're foreigners, who have distinctly different interests from those of US and its citizenry. Therefore it makes no sense to just transplant and push ideologies from across the Atlantic and it's distinctly anti-Finnish thing to do. Which is something that should not be done in a state broadcaster, financed wholly by the state and the taxpayers.
Some of the translated ones clearly are, but there are quite a few actual on point reporting. Unlike US, we maintain a working relationship with Russia to this day. It's a precarious balancing act as it has been for last half a decade, but we have quite a bit of expertise on the topic. We lack the interest to be hostile to Russia, so much of reporting is quite neutral and does go over the relevant biases in reporting.
I call bullshit on your bullshit, and notably, so did everyone else in this thread. The admission of the fact that the only ones without the negative spin on Trump in US media are fox is obvious.
It's a dual-purpose orifice.
Table-ized A.I.
Arnold was a fuckin baller. You see that carriage he was rolling in Turn?
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Whenever the tone is this overwhelming negative, the press is going out of their way to make shit up.
You know, the other possibility is that they are reporting the actual truth and the truth is bad. Even the paper you linked says:
But I will never believe that the guy who ordered toddlers ripped from their parents arms and locked in cages is actually a really a good guy and that it's the media who's making him look bad. If you can't acknowledge that stealing children from their parents, locking the children up for months on end and giving those children a life time of emotional and social problems is evil, then I pity you.
And that's just one of the terrible things that Trump has done.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
in no way does that work backwards. Trump can't block people because of who he is as a government official. If he starts gramming he can't block people either. if he has email he can't block people. It's not a function of the social media. It's a function of the presidency. The same way we as a people are allowed to block politicians, social media can ban them.
Why backwards? You have just explained to me that Trump cannot block anyone on twitter, because twitting is a "function of the presidency", in your own words. So can twitter remove a "function of the presidency" at its own discretion? I do not think so. In fact, in the article I linked there is a statement by twitter, that enforce that point of view (because it suited them at the time): "Twitter has said that messages from world leaders like Mr Trump are inherently of public interest and argued that blocking those users or censoring certain messages would <<not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions>>". So twitter blocking Trump would harm the "public interest", _according to twitter itsef_.
Can the telephone utility company cut the phone line of the White House? No. Can the USPS stop fetching the mail at the White House? No. Is Twitter a utility? That is the real question. I would argue that it is not and that mr. Trump can block other people, and that Twitter can ban mr. Trump. A federal judge seems to argue differently, though.
-$5/share, they would have to actually pay someone to take their company from them if we went on real value.
The US currently enjoys unprecedented transparency in to the Whitehouse. You may not like what your President is doing or who he is as a person but you have a clear view of him and more importantly he publishes his random thoughts uncensored. If you look at your past presidents there probably is not a single one that didn't strive to present wonderful public persona while working a hidden agenda out of sight ... until they were caught.
Observation: there is so much personal and media focus on disrespecting the current President but there doesn't seem to be any initiative on addressing the issues in the US that got him to power. Where is the media focus and the personal effort being put on fixing voter registration, the electoral college structure, the working poor, the radical right (winning hearts/minds not shouting at them), etc. Fact is, it seems it is easier to criticize and dig up dirt than it is to get on the job of fixing things. America has the President it deserves and needed. It's a wake up call, things are not all right. Fix them.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
Twitter is making too much money to boot Trump. That just ain't gonna happen. In fact, they relish the drama, just as the media does.
Just another day in Paradise
But I will never believe that the guy who ordered toddlers ripped from their parents arms and locked in cages is actually a really a good guy and that it's the media who's making him look bad.
Given that you're eager to accept the premise that all of Trump's negative coverage is unvarnished truth, I'm not surprised you'd swallow this narrative hook line and sinker. Here is another baby being stolen from her mamma who will suffer long lasting emotional problems at the hands of police and Trump's America. Spoiler alert: Turns out that real life is more complicated than the media would lead you to assume.
So while you're busy pitying everyone who doesn't have their buttons pushed by knee-jerk emotional manipulation, those that care more about having an accurate understanding of the world will still have their work cut out for them. They won't have their heads lodged firmly up into the echo chamber of for-profit partisan media and the Mockingbird press.
You're just a sad pathetic excuse for a person.
Your saintly hero still ordered children locked in cages for his political benefit. He's evil and so are you.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
So, how many Jews are working in this purportedly "nazi" organisation? In high positions too?
This far left psychosis where anyone left of Marx is a nazi is getting tiring. National Socialism is a very clearly defined ideology in many ways.
You're just a sad pathetic excuse for a person.
Perhaps. I apologize if I violated your safe space.
Your saintly hero still ordered children locked in cages for his political benefit. He's evil and so are you.
I'm going to call fake news on this one. You may also need to work on that anti-fanatical thing a bit more if you want to sound more convincing.
in no way does that work backwards. Trump can't block people because of who he is as a government official. If he starts gramming he can't block people either. if he has email he can't block people. It's not a function of the social media. It's a function of the presidency. The same way we as a people are allowed to block politicians, social media can ban them.
Why backwards? You have just explained to me that Trump cannot block anyone on twitter, because twitting is a "function of the presidency", in your own words.
No. tweeting isn't a function of the presidency. Trump being able to share information with the public is a function of the presidency. Blocking isn't a problem because it stops Trump from being able to listen to me. It's a problem because it stop me from being able to listen to the President. As a citizen I have the right to hear the president. It has nothing to do with twitter as a social media platform. They have ruled that his tweets count as official statements and therefore he doesn't have the right to hide those statements from anyone (via blocking).
So can twitter remove a "function of the presidency" at its own discretion? I do not think so. In fact, in the article I linked there is a statement by twitter, that enforce that point of view (because it suited them at the time): "Twitter has said that messages from world leaders like Mr Trump are inherently of public interest and argued that blocking those users or censoring certain messages would <<not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions>>". So twitter blocking Trump would harm the "public interest", _according to twitter itsef_. Can the telephone utility company cut the phone line of the White House? No. Can the USPS stop fetching the mail at the White House? No. Is Twitter a utility? That is the real question. I would argue that it is not and that mr. Trump can block other people, and that Twitter can ban mr. Trump. A federal judge seems to argue differently, though.
Twitter can block trump because Trump can still speak to people. Tweeting is not a function of the presidency. Communication is a function of the presidency. Twitter is just one of many ways he can do that and while the 1st Amendment guarantees some means of communication he doesn't guarantee others no matter how commonplace or popular they are. Trump can be blocked from any number of services. He can be blocked from the local mall or Subway sandwich store because it's the right of the people to block anyone. But if the president says something in a sandwhich shop while he can be banned from it. It must be recorded as part of public information. Trump can go to GAB for all I care being forced to communicate via telegram doesn't over the radio because no TV channel will carry his words. Trumps tweets are important because of who he is. That applies all the way around from his tweets to his speeches to anything he says in public. That doesn't mean he has a right to literally every public space. Specifically he doesn't have a right to the privatized spaces that aren't public land like twitter and facebook. It's helpful to spread the word but he could retreat to radio and there's no legal reason he has be on Television. If the president is reduced to carrying a radio show and he blocks a state or a county or a neighborhood or a house from hearing him because they take him out of context or they're democrats or whatever nonsense he would come up with. THAT would be not only illegal but analogous to Trump blocking someone on twitter. You can't deny the president's words to any american citizen. Because that's public information. if the only way he communicates is with a newsletter he can't limit the distribution of that newsletter to people who are favored to him. This is centrally about the president's words and access to them. If he blocks someone that limits their access to public inform
Just another second banana
The revelations overcame Edgar Maddison Welch like a hallucinatory fever. On December 1st, 2016, the father of two from Salisbury, North Carolina, a man whose pastimes included playing Pictionary with his family, tried to persuade two friends to join a rescue mission. Alex Jones, the Info-Wars host, was reporting that Hillary Clinton was sexually abusing children in satanic rituals a few hundred miles north, in the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant. Welch told his friends the “raid” on a “pedo ring” might require them to “sacrifice the lives of a few for the lives of many.
https://www.rollingstone.com/p...
John