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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."
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.
>"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.
T would complain 24/7 if booted. Do you really want to hear that all the time from him?
Table-ized A.I.
I'm pretty sure Elon Musk is a Republican. He has donated money to the Republican party.
He donated to Marco Rubio, but he also donated to Hillary Clinton.
Between 2003 and 2015 he donated $258,350 to Democratic candidates and $261,300 to Republicans.
It wasn't just a name. He was saying he raped children.
He did, but not on Twitter. He called Unsworth a "child rapist" in an email. The worst he said on Twitter was "pedo guy".
Also, for what it's worth, Musk later apologized.
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?
The standard? https://help.twitter.com/en/ru...
1. No targeted harassment (i.e. repeated behavior that causes alarm/annoyance/distress). I think there have been a total of two tweets from Elon Musk in this case, so it hardly seems repeated.
2. No unwanted sexual advances. This clearly wasn't.
3. No promoting violence on the basis of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, religion, age, disability. Musk wasn't promoting violence nor was this one of the protected categories.
4. No hateful display names or profile images.
Elon Musk's tweets clearly haven't broken the Twitter rules. It should be stressed that "11001000100 think the tweets shouldn't have been made" and indeed "most people think the tweets shouldn't have been made" are both very different from "violate the standard"
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.
Today, we got a little insight into how Donald Trump feels about that "culture".
Oopsie.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There was a recent hilarious case of twitter user bluecheckwatch who literally went through verified twitter users with far left views, and just post screenshots of their open hate speech, twitter took swift action...
By banning the user bluecheckwatch. All the racist, sexist hatred user posted evidence of is obviously still allowed, because it's targeting the correct untermensch, in the name of correct ubermensch. In modern progressive lingvo, we call it "fair and balanced".
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.
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.
Twitter is the land of double standards. If you're "in with the group" there's no problem at all. Note how very few blue checkmarked jackasses that spew racism or bigotry get any type of warning or punishment. People who point this out? Banned. Your local antifa group advocating for violence, or people supporting and calling for violence under the banner? Not banned. Group of guys making in-jokes and posing memes? Banned.
Om, nomnomnom...
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
Twitter has kicked off a lot of moderate conservatives, while allowing racist hate, and threats, and offers to murder, from leftists.
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