Slashdot Mirror
President Trump Accuses Twitter of Political Bias (bloomberg.com)
President Donald Trump has accused Twitter of targeting his followers for removal from the social media platform, amid complaints by conservatives that social media companies have been discriminating against right-wing voices. From a report: "Twitter has removed many people from my account and, more importantly, they have seemingly done something that makes it much harder to join -- they have stifled growth to a point where it is obvious to all," Trump said in a tweet Friday. "A few weeks ago it was a Rocket Ship, now it is a Blimp! Total Bias?" Trump and some other Republicans have complained that Facebook, Alphabet's Google and Twitter have censored or suppressed conservative voices. Democrats have called that a diversion from concern over Russia's use of social-media platforms to influence the 2016 presidential election and over the proliferation of offensive content. In his opening remarks during a meeting with state attorneys general in September, Attorney General Jeff Sessions raised concerns that social media companies have a political agenda and have the power to manipulate public opinion, according to Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.
It's hard to admit to yourself, after the last account removals of Nazis, that you were one them.
Even if you didn't know it, the rest of us did.
of being an idiot. Stalemate.
Twitter is not a government entity. They can do what they damn well please. They don't have to obey the 1st Amendment. If he doesn't like it, he can quit using the service (don't we all wish)....
Can we keep this stuff off here please? I don't mind if there is some evidence to back it up (like even a blog post showing how it was hard for someone to sign up). Furthermore the headline is even wrong, he didn't accuse them of bias, he dropped the question, "Total bias?" So basically what happened is "Trump asked whether Twitter has bias." And of course all right-wing news sites will run with the story.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Anyone that argues there is no Bias is just lying to themselves.
when you're objectively wrong it's important to keep pushing an opposing narrative. The American right wing figured this out in the 80s.
At the end of the day strip away the nonsense about "Culture War" this and "PC that" and you're left with what really matters: economics. And when it comes to economics the media is united on the side of the right. Low taxes (for capital, labor can still pay taxes, I mean, somebody's gotta pay 'em, amiright?), minimal or no regulation, free trade when it's good for profits (but not for pharmaceuticals, that would be a job killing regulation). The right own Sinclair who own just about every TV station in the country. They own Fox news. Hell, they own CNN and MSNBC if you pay attention to economics instead of social issues.
I guess it bothers me to see the right wing playing the victim card when they've got all 3 branches of gov't, billionaire elites and virtually all the media that matters on their side. What bother's me is that they can peddle this nonsensical persecution complex and get away with it. It's Orwellian Double think, exactly the kind of thing they're supposed to be against...
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What the hell has happened to the /. comments section over the past 10 years? This place has gone fucking crazy with right wing crybabies. Used to come back here to see reasoned and thoughtful discussion even while the trolls were prevalent, but now it's just some bot-esque echo chamber of crazy people. It's like the bots and crazies that infested local newspaper comments section added this site to their target lists for propaganda.
This is my sig. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
No, they admitted under oath that their automated system deleted 48% of the tweets. Breitbart didn't omit those details, why did you?
Also, why continue to vote for the Republicans in charge of that committee who failed to do anything after Twitter admitted that? They don't advocate for you, so why do you still support them? They took the side of big business, as usual, yet I doubt you're gonna vote to remove any of them from office in 2 weeks, are yah?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
I'm glad that President Trump is focusing on his number of Twitter followers as one of his supporters in Florida is arrested for a terrorist attack on his prominent critics.
He's definitely showing leadership and has his priorities straight.
https://www.abcactionnews.com/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
Against Nazis and white supremacists. Uh oh, slashdot didn't delete my comment, it must be biased too!
I mean, what are the chances that Nazis and KKK members are hated by most of society, and that it becomes reflected in a platform used by large portions of society?
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
If you are going to pass over the far left by saying it's not 'substantial', then the same could be said of the far right. It's the same on both sides: both extremes are absurd but both represent a tiny slice of the demographic that generally leans left or right. Both sides get a disproportionate amount of airtime relative to the number of people actually in those extreme groups.
if you shut down lies, hate, and bullshit? There are probably plenty of others who get the boot, too, but the GOP is particularly enamored of spewing outright lies, hate, and bullshit, so it just looks like they are being targeted. If they don't like getting filtered or banned, maybe they should try not lying so much. Duh.
Nope. They lost any such protection the moment they went public.
A partnership or closely held corporation has most of the rights of the owners. If the owners share some religious belief, they get some degree of protection from being compelled to act against that belief, as it should be. But a publicly held corporation is nothing like that. The act of opening up ownership to anyone with money renounces any protections for being a group of people united in faith.
Which, by the way, is the right answer to balance free speech with preventing campaign donations. Public corporations (i.e., almost every big one) should just be banned completely from donating to politicians or PACs. Including donations in kind, like only allowing ads from one political side (just as e.g. radio stations are barred from doing).
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Faux News? They've never been a NEWS station, reporting facts and following journalistic practices or ethics. They have always been the mouthpiece of the GOP, and recently, disinformation from Russia. So while nobody needs a gag order more than Fox news, we're never gonna' get it until they go tits up after being sued for inciting violence and civil war - which is not likely to happen under our far-right Supreme Court.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
No, it is not. The far-right in America is represented by the 30% who watch fox news and attend Trump rallies.
You're making the two-fold common mistake of (1) assuming everyone on the other side of the divide are all the same and (2) assuming everyone on the other side holds the most extreme views. The reality is far closer to a bell curve - on either end you have a tiny portion of wackos, while a huge majority clusters around the middle.
Less than 1% of the US watches Fox News (https://www.adweek.com/tvnewser/the-top-basic-cable-networks-for-july-2018-are/372335 vs https://www.google.com/search?...).
I don't know how big Trump rallies get, but in a quick search I couldn't find any with more than a few thousand, but even if you're generous and assume an average attendance of 10k, about one tenth of 1% of the US attends Trump rallies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_post-election_Donald_Trump_rallies - 50-ish rallies in 2018 * 10k/rally).
Further, attending a rally or watching Fox News are not things I'd do, but they don't make someone be "far right" any more than watching CNN/MSNBC and/or attending a Clinton rally make you "far left".
The far-left by your notion believes in radical ideas like balanced budgets and providing a social safety net which prevents Americans from victimized by the wealthy.
Really? I told you that? When?
No, the far-left by my notion supports antifa, worships at the altar of identity politics and safe spaces, preaches tolerance of any view that matches their own and harsh intolerance of everything else, and disincentivizes every form of honest work (either through the most extreme guaranteed safety nets or blatantly unfair progressive 90%+ tax rates).
But guess what? I don't believe everyone left of center holds the most extreme views. Everyone left of center is not an antifa nutjob. But the same is also true of those right of center - there is a short distance of opinion between the vast majority of the people in this country.
Just because moderates are on the opposite side of the spectrum that the current American right, does not in any way may the far left.
You're deluding yourself, but if you can provide some citations, go for it.
But above all, you're missing the larger point, which is that lumping together everyone on the other side of the line, whether they be just a shade over or the most extreme, is a really terrible political strategy (doesn't matter if you lean left or right). It all but guarantees that nothing gets done. If you want to win elections and steer the country, then a far better strategy is to move from "you voted for candidate X? You are by definition evil/stupid! There is nothing more to say!" to "wow, the extremes are nutty! Forget 'left'and 'right', let's form a coalition made up of even-keeled people".
This is a winning strategy, but will always be beyond your reach as long as you continue with your present mode of thinking.
for one thing there's bots and trolls. As silly as it sounds /.ers are a key demographic. We're old enough that we vote reliably. We're also old enough to have something to lose and fearful of losing it. We've been through a ton of layoffs thanks to tech outsourcing so we're highly receptive of "us vs them" messaging. That makes us an ideal and fertile ground for that kind of politicing.
As an added bonus we're mostly men, and men are feeling pretty well crapped on lately. We granted women equal rights but there's some fundamental imbalances that need to be addressed. Men want women more than women want men. That means when they're no longer property they gain a kind of leverage over men. Also women have lots of effective birth control options while men have two, one of which is difficult if not impossible to reverse. Demagogues use the resentment from that tilting balance of power to generate a backlash and create a movement that you can use to your advantage. You see this overtly with Trump's "Locker room" talk and passive-aggressively with Jordan Peterson's Lobsters.
TL;DR; We're bitter, angry, underpaid with no job security and we can't get laid. We're perfect fodder for a right wing uprising.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
a.k.a. liars and idiots.
Home of the nationalist, the white supremacist, the flat-earther, the fascist, the religious zealot, and the neo-nazi. These are some really awesome people and we all need to hear what they have to say....
- Vincit qui patitur.
The far left is now everybody slightly to the right of center. By today's standards Reagan and Ike were both communists when you actually look at their platforms relative to the Ayn Rand worshiping Republicans of today. (And Reagan was a McCarthyist. )
Indeed, I'm a centrist and the far right on here frequently have called me a liberal or lefty just for not liking Trump. It reminds me of the Bush era and the "if you oppose the Iraq war you're a traitor" verbiage. It's political propaganda "if you're not for the President you're part of a dangerous radical left".
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
and while we're at it hold Fox News to the editorial standards that used to exist where you can't mix news and editorializing? How about all those billionaires and their unlimited money? Money is speech after all and they've got unlimited speech and power. Ready to start taking away their central power?
Sorry, but you're not fooling anyone. You're in favor of centralized media control when it suits you. You're opposed to it when the slightest resistance is detected.
Here's the thing, you won. You won everything. You control every branch of government. Even the Democrats are mostly right wing now thanks to the Overton window shift. The right own everything. Now you've just got to live with the consequences. Your guy Trump just called himself a Nationalist. He praises dictators for seizing power. He put a pro-torture woman in charge of the CIA. That's all gonna come home to roost soon. Enjoy your Pyrrhic victory. In the meantime can you stop acting like you're some oppressed minority? You're not. You won.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
we changed the definition of "far right" from "guys who want to shut down Social Security/Medicare, stop funding public schools and do away with clean water regulations" to "Neo-Nazis".
Meanwhile we kept the definition of the far left as "Women who want to cut off men's penises and seize all private property".
The number of "far right" didn't change. They used clever rhetoric and their control of mass media to pretend their ideas weren't radical and hammered that point home until folks were fooled into it. There is a substantial far right in America, we just got tricked into pretending there isn't.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
No, the legal theory was:
Where the "checking" had nothing to do with checking for copyright infringement but rather "political bias."
The argument was that if a service implemented a political bias that they'd lose the copyright safe harbor. "Political bias" is not red flag knowledge of copyright infringement under 17 USC 512(c).
So, you are seeking to contradict me on the basis of the synonyms I chose? "Right wing" and "Right-minded" are the same things, dear. Interchangeable synonyms, like "sex" and "gender".
Nor is there a difference — in this context — between the terms "umpire", "referee", as well as "judge" and "arbiter".
The rules work because these moderators (yet another synonym) are picked to not have their own affiliation with either side. This is a concept long-known in the world of sports — next time you watch Olympics or World Cup, pay attention... Never is a match judged by arbiters from the same country as one of the teams, for example. Indeed, often the referees are from a different continent.
But we don't have to limit ourselves to the domain of sports. For example from a different world, you and the majority of Twitter employees would always point out the inherent unfairness of any criminal conviction, rendered against a Black by a White jury...
Quite amazing for you to insist on it being "pretty fair", while still inviting me to "make some rules" to address the unfairness...
No, Twitter is not fair, we both know it, Jack Dorsey knows. No, it is not for the government to make rules for them — that would be tyranny.
Lastly, my disliking something is not a good enough reason for me to demand it legally banned — this is something you, a Left-minded, would do good to understand (if not accept).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.