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.

Comments

Self discovery

[nospam007]

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.

Re:Self discovery

[Mashiki]

after the last account removals of Nazis

You mean the last account removals of people using the NPC meme, where twitter has refused to give any ban reason at all? But liberals and progressives were screeching that the NPC meme is 'dehumanizing' but conveniently forget that they've been labeling anyone who doesn't follow their ideology as nasi's, fascists, racists, sexists, homophobes, and chalk full of misogyny? And if you're a minority that doesn't agree, you're an uncle tom, house ni**er(enjoy the lameness filter), race traitor, white supremacist, and so on? And that's been going on for years at this point.

How very interesting is that rational. Yep, looks like liberals and progressives have diminished actual words of "bad people" to the point where nobody really gives a shit, except for the people that think just like them. *Insert joke here about NPC's following the same program.*

So?

[Anonymous Coward]

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)....

Re:So?

[Z80a]

Yes, they can, but they can't have the safe harbor provision as they show to be checking for every post with a system, so they should be liable for every single copyright infringement on the platform.

Re:So?

[penandpaper]

What impact can social media have on our elections? Apparently, a lot if Russian ads on Facebook are believed to swing 2016. Are you comfortable with private entities able to control elections to such an extent as to be able to silence people from national dialogue and get their preferred politician elected because the power they wield over people?

Here I thought the left was against large multinational companies abusing their positions of power over regular people. I don't know what the right answer is but I think we are in a precarious position as the technology matures to be able to, in real-time, silence and condition the dialogue people have. That is more dangerous to democracy than Trump or any president could ever be. It's even more terrifying that there are so many quick to support that kind of power for any kind of entity especially one without accountability or transparency. I don't care if it was Jesus Christ that is too much power for one company, platform, person, industry, government, anything to have.

Re:So?

[Mashiki]

Doesn't actually matter if they're not a government entity. Twitter has testified that they consider themselves the "new public square" for political discussion. They promoted that as well. There's been a whole assload of cases on this whereby a company presents itself as a public square, 1st amendment rules apply.

So really it boils down to this: Either the 1st amendment rules apply, in which case they're far more broadly protected and so are people. Or it doesn't, in which case they're not only curating content, but the people allowed to post there. In which case CDA S.230 no longer apply and they become liable for anything posted there. The "reasonable" defense section only applies if they allow access but don't actively curate, something they stopped doing a few years ago, when they made the change of how people become verified and in turn stated that they support the views of the people who are verified. This again is something they've openly stated.

Re:So?

[lgw]

Twitter is not a government entity. They can do what they damn well please.

That's not how it works in America (or anywhere, really). They can't e.g. ban you because you're Black. The more you open your business to the public, the more you have to bake that gay cake, like it or not. And there's a spectrum defined in law, from "group of people who all know each other" to "common carrier". For the former, the rights of the owners dominate, for the latter the rights of the customers dominate, and there are several stops in between.

Twitter needs to be held to some legal standard. Are they a common carrier? Then they must respect the first amendment rights of their users. Are they a publisher? They they get 100% control of content, and are 100% legally responsible for what they allow. So what are they?

Re:So?

[bobbied]

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)....

Yes, as a Trump supporter, I DO wish he'd lay off his tweeting, at least for the most part. Some of it has been helpful, but the bulk of it has been anything but helpful or appropriate in my view. But one must also acknowledge that the media's reaction to these tweets has been at least partly responsible for the whole three ring circus. Trump is obviously the ring master, but the media are running around as the clowns at his request.

However, It's fair to state that there IS sort of a social movement brewing that is pushing to force 1st amendment like rules onto popular social platforms, even those which are privately owned and operated. Personally, I'm a bit conflicted about this kind of regulation, because that's what this will need to be, a law. On one hand I clearly see the political bias imposed by these platforms as a bad thing, but on the other I clearly understand that the 1st amendment doesn't apply.

I guess that my preference would be for a "hands off" policy and leave things as they are. Let folks like Trump complain about how unfair the sites moderate based on political bias, just take the complaints with a grain of salt. As much as these platforms are PR shamed into trying to justify their bias, the net effect is the same as a regulation and a whole lot less complex and expensive to boot.

SO... Let Trump complain. I think he's correct, Twitter is biased. However, I'm not supportive of laws or regulations that try to enforce any political parity on social platforms. IF Trump's PR war on Twitter causes them to be less biased, great! I think it's a waste of his time, but I'm more concerned about his accomplishments and policies than his Twitter rants.

Re:So?

[Sarten-X]

Here I thought the left was against large multinational companies abusing their positions of power over regular people.

As someone who's often left-leaning, that's almost completely wrong.

The left is very much in favor of large companies (and states) having power over regular people. The key is that it's a highly-regulated power, managed by someone with the regular people's best interests in mind, because history has shown that the regular people very rarely understand how to actually accomplish their goals. Those that do aggressively pursue their goals will usually end up doing so by preventing others from pursuing theirs.

Now, on the other hand, the left is strongly opposed to anyone (company, individual, state, or otherwise) having any power that can be used to oppress anyone. If technology can silence a particular idea, then there must be rules in place to prevent its use in that way. Without those rules, the technology is better left unbuilt.

This is, of course, very idealistic. Benevolent dictators usually don't keep either adjective for long. People don't realize the negative impact until well after the damage is done. That's why the left also tends to favor bureaucracies with strong checks and balances, to prevent any individual (or small groups) from undermining the protective regulations.

It's even more terrifying that there are so many quick to support that kind of power for any kind of entity especially one without accountability or transparency.

You sound like a leftist. /s

Re:So?

[walterbyrd]

Honest question: is twitter a publisher or a medium. It makes a huge difference.

If twitter is a publisher, then they may have the right to reject some tweets. But, that also means they are responsible for *everything* that is tweeted.

If twitter is a medium, then they do not have the right to delete tweets that have the wrong political opinion.

It seems to me that twitter - and facebook and google - want to have it both ways.

Re:So?

[sexconker]

Nononono get out of here with your facts. You aren't supposed to use the liberal CA rule that defines political ideology as a protected class. That's a cudgel for liberals to use, it's NOT FAIR to apply the law equally. And what are you doing pointing out the recent decision that jeopardizes our overlords and their ability to kick us out of their "open" platform discriminatorily? YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING ATTENTION!!!

Re:So?

[DRJlaw]

Yes, they can, but they can't have the safe harbor provision as they show to be checking for every post with a system, so they should be liable for every single copyright infringement on the platform.

Prove it. Show me anything in the CDA or DMCA that conditions the safe harbors upon a lack of "bias" in the material that a service carries.

I'll even give you the links to the relevant CDA and DMCA provisions because you're not going to find them.

-IP/Technology Attorney

Re:So?

[DRJlaw]

Doesn't actually matter if they're not a government entity. Twitter has testified that they consider themselves the "new public square" for political discussion. They promoted that as well. There's been a whole assload of cases on this whereby a company presents itself as a public square, 1st amendment rules apply.

Pretty sure they've revoked that policy at this point. Just because they promoted that at one time does not mean that they're locked into it for all eternity.

ls down to this: Either the 1st amendment rules apply, in which case they're far more broadly protected and so are people. Or it doesn't, in which case they're not only curating content, but the people allowed to post there. In which case CDA S.230 no longer apply and they become liable for anything posted there.

No. The CDA expressly says otherwise. 48 USC 230(c)(2):

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of --
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

The "reasonable" defense section only applies if they allow access but don't actively curate, something they stopped doing a few years ago, when they made the change of how people become verified and in turn stated that they support the views of the people who are verified.

Pure fiction.

Re:So?

[DRJlaw]

Are they a publisher? They they get 100% control of content, and are 100% legally responsible for what they allow.

They're an interactive computer service, and get reasonable control of content on a good faith basis with 0% responsibility for what they allow.

CDA section 230(c):

(c) Protection for âoeGood Samaritanâ blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liabilityNo provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of--
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)

Re:So?

[farble1670]

Citation?

Let me try to help. Say your neighbor starts running down the street yelling "Your wife is a whore!". Do you think:

1. Everyone should believe him, because he said it. Until you prove otherwise, she is a whore.
2. People should disregard him, or at least ask him provide evidence.

The choice is of course self evident to sane people.

People can play these "all assertions need evidence" games all day long. It benefits no one, particularly in the information age and when most citations are simply links to other people that have also made the same assertion with no citation themselves.

i'm confused what you are saying. Are you arguing we should believe nothing we read, or everything we read? Or should we flip a coin? In lieu of evidence we can trust or at least put some weight on, a coin flip is the best we can do.

Or do you think we should believe whatever supports our internal narrative about the world? Like, Twitter is a bunch of libtards trying to bring down Trump?

Re:So?

[DRJlaw]

If twitter is a publisher, then they may have the right to reject some tweets. But, that also means they are responsible for *everything* that is tweeted.

Wrong. The CDA permits them to screen out the overtly and covertly racist drivel that passes for the sort of material suppressed for "bias" that Trump is complaining of.

(c) Protection for âoeGood Samaritanâ blocking and screening of offensive material
(1) Treatment of publisher or speaker
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.

(2) Civil liability No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of--
(A) any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected; or
(B) any action taken to enable or make available to information content providers or others the technical means to restrict access to material described in paragraph (1)

Re:So?

[El Cubano]

Really, Slashdot readers? +5 Interesting!?!?!

The left is very much in favor of large companies (and states) having power over regular people. The key is that it's a highly-regulated power, managed by someone with the regular people's best interests in mind, because history has shown that the regular people very rarely understand how to actually accomplish their goals. Those that do aggressively pursue their goals will usually end up doing so by preventing others from pursuing theirs.

You have paternalism, elitism, classism, and corporatism (maybe some other -isms that I missed) all wrapped up into one. Let me rephrase your statement:

The left is very much in favor of un-freedom.

If anything, history has shown that while people do at times make the wrong decision, both individually and at the levels of various local/national political entities, they often are able to accomplish their goals. What happens, though, is that sometimes once they accomplish their goals they realize that maybe they should not have accomplished their goals.

Discounting for the moment revolutions that have been fomented by other countries (notably the US poking around in Latin America and the Caribbean), in the last few hundred years you have had significant revolutions in the US, Russia, France, Cuba, Venezuela, China, and others. Each of those seems to be a very clear example of the people accomplishing their goals, with some turning out better than others. Cuba and Venezuela, however, seem to also be shining examples of "buyers remorse".

What you describe is what we have seen Cuba and Venezuela turn into, with the government controlling not just big business, but also small businesses and individuals. Surprise surprise, people there found out that they were not so fond of losing their self-determination (i.e., liberty) to the government even though they gave it away to start with!

Re:So?

[gDLL]

Nobody says we can't protest, even if perfectly allowed.

Re: So?

[SuricouRaven]

Creative use of technology can't ignore the law, but can result in long legal disputes.

There was an old P2P network which I forget the name of that tried to avoid copyright infringement through maths. Rather than transmit copyrighted work, it split the work into two blocks - one of random noise, the other of that noise XORed with the data. Stored separately, so that neither party storing it could have the work in any meaningful way, but a downloader could reassemble it from blocks of random data.

The express intention was to create something of such legal ambiguity that any attempt to prosecute could take years to work out in court.

Re: So?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Anyone can challenge anyone. That doesn't change the fact that what I wrote is correct.

Why can't they have a bias?

[Vegan Cyclist]

So what? It's their platforms, why can't they have a political bias? If I ran a website with a political bias, would that be breaking any laws? I wonder if Trump properties have a 'bias' to who they rent to? Is Trump willing to speak up there as well if commercial entities can't have a political bias?

Still the Bias is there.

[Zorro]

Anyone that argues there is no Bias is just lying to themselves.

Trump

[Anonymous Coward]

I was elected king or whatever, biggest election in any country ever, and now people are questioning me. Nobody ever questioned Obama. Obama was so bad I was always questioning him, as were many of the best people. Everyone is saying how well I am doing, really, and nobody is questioning me, so why are all these people questioning me?

It didn't, though...

[Sarten-X]

Nothing significant happened.

According to the results of a quick Google search, Trump lost a maximum of 11,230 followers from his high of 55,287,639, a grand total of 0.02%.

Re:It didn't, though...

[Sarten-X]

It wasn't 2%. It was 0.02%. 1/5000th of his follower count.

Sure, they could have been active participants...... but it's far more likely to have been bots, killed off in a normal purge.

Re:Wow

[rickb928]

Possible discriminatory account deletions and manipulations by Internet social media platforms seems like both:

'News for nerds' - tech stuff potentially being used to manipulate news and opinions is pretty geeky, even though it's also mainstream...

'Stuff that matters' - seems like Twitter in particular messing with your followers might matter to some of you. Or not, but I betting the interest is nonzero.

And you can expect even the non-right-wing news sites to run the story, perhaps with a different analysis.

This is about establishing a narrative

[rsilvergun]

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...

Re:Wow

[El Cubano]

"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.

You say that like the bias is imagined. Here is one recent example.

Here, I'll save you the trouble of reading it: Candace Owens, a black woman who is a conservative, took anti-white racist tweets by the newly hired member of the NYT editorial board, Sarah Jeong, and replaced "white" with "black". Result? Twitter did nothing to Sarah Jeong for her original tweets, but locked out Candace Owens' account for violating Twitter's rules. Twitter claims it was a "mistake."

This sort of thing has happened enough times that it sure seems like there is a bias problem.

Twitter admitted it a while ago

[mi]

I don't mind if there is some evidence to back it up

There is. Twitter CEO admitted prevalence of Left among the employees, to the point, where the Right-minded do not feel safe expressing their views.

He then proclaimed, that "need to remove our bias from how we act and our policies and our enforcement" — which is like a Boston referee promising to not favor Red Sox...

So, yes, Twitter are biased, that's a fact. It is also a fact, that it is legal for them to have such a bias.

Finally, I think it is self-evident, that they should not be biased — both for reasons we have the First Amendment in the first place (the Amendment does not apply to them, but the reasons do), and because it hurts their business. And here Jack Dorsey agrees with me, thankfully...

Will he ever post anything positive?

[McPierce]

That's all I ask. His every tweet is something negative, an attack or an accusation that someone is mistreating/maligning/abusing him.

Has he nothing to contribute?

Re: Wow

[phantomfive]

It doesn't belong here because there's no story. If Trump tweets "did aliens use Apple computers to build the pyramids?" It also is not a story, despite involving technology

Re:Wow

[alvinrod]

Given the number of other threads that devolve into shit flinging in one direction or the other over Trump (or just politics in general), maybe it's not a bad idea to have one of these stories every now and again with some thinly veiled connection to technology so that everyone who wants to argue about has a place to do so and the other comment sections can be free of their off-topic discussion.

Maybe it could get it's own special little section with some other features. Moderation can be changed so that he only options are "+1 Validates My Beliefs" and "-1 Fuck You I Disagree" or something along those lines. Anyone who wants to, is free to join in, but if they don't even want to observe the trash fire, they can just skip over the story entirely. Maybe even feel a little bit smug about doing so.

Re:FALSE

[Plus1Entropy]

"Sorry, it's against our religious views to serve Nazis."

-Twitter

This site could use a cleanup as well

[cHiphead]

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.

Re:Bias is Pretty Blatant Anyway

[Plus1Entropy]

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?

Twitter is the problem

[PopeRatzo]

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/...

Re:Twitter is the problem

[PopeRatzo]

So, a New York thug who moved to Florida. Most of those are DNC loyalists, but it will be interesting to see how the rest of the details progress. Maybe this is an exception. Either way, if it's him, lock him up.

He also drives a van covered with Trump stickers and is a long-time registered Republican. Sorry, guys, but this is exactly what it seemed to be: a MAGA-chud hopped up on Trump's violent rhetoric, going down the list of people Trump has criticized on Twitter and sending them pipe bombs. More right-wing domestic terrorism.

Re:Twitter is the problem

[Mashiki]

Funny, I didn't hear you complaining about leftwing terrorism. You know like the democrat who shot up the congressional baseball game. Or the other democrat who sent ricin through the mail and tried to kill a bunch of people including Trump's kid. Oh yes, very "right wing terrorism." And sure didn't hear you whining about Holder saying "kick them when they're down." Or Waters telling people to get into the face of other people - funny how progressives and democrats suddenly started doing this right after she said it.

No no, it's ALLLLLLLLLLlllll right wing terrorism.

I am biased

[Plus1Entropy]

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?

Re:Bias is Pretty Blatant Anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

Is the US Senate a good enough source for you? https://www.lgraham.senate.gov...

Re:Who said Twitter has no bias?

[dbrueck]

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.

SHOCKED! Not that shocked.

[MadCat221]

Wingnut president accuses media outlet that doesn't bark at the GOP moon of "Political Bias". News at 11.

Is it political bias

[mark_reh]

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.

Re:FALSE

[lgw]

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).

Re: Wow

[lgw]

An anecdote is solid evidence when it comes to the behavior of algorithms. When you're talking about a group of people, individual examples don't mean much because they aren't very predictive. An algorithm is different. Once you know how to beat a PacMan level, you know how to beat it every time.

That point of evidence proves that, at that point in time, Twitter's algorithms only banned people for criticism of some races, but not others. Can we agree that's not cool? That code that is capable of e.g. banning criticism of Aryans while allowing the same criticism of Jews should be made incapable of doing so?

Re:Who said Twitter has no bias?

[dbrueck]

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.

More likely ...

[fahrbot-bot]

Trump and some other Republicans have complained that Facebook, Alphabet's Google and Twitter have censored or suppressed conservative voices.

... the companies simply removed bot accounts pushing propaganda. As the accounts of actual people, like Alex Jones, they apparently violated the companies' Terms and Conditions. Not really a 1st Amendment issue as companies and individuals can limit whatever they want on their platforms - for any reason.

Trump Should Have Been Banned From Twitter

[BrendaEM]

A person is using twitter to launch personal attacks against others.

Boycott Twitter.

Re:Who said Twitter has no bias?

[JackieBrown]

You are comparing apples to oranges by comparing European definitions to American ones.

It's about as accurate as us stating Europeans have no right wing since they don't line up with our perception.

But you know that.

Re:Who said Twitter has no bias?

[farble1670]

Twitter never really suggested it had no bias, it's always been fundamentally far left in leaning.

Post your references, AC troll. It's not the responsibility of decent people to prove your retarded statements false.

Conservative voices

[Arkham]

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....

Examples?

[joppeknol]

Is there any evidence of twitter deleting accounts where a person politely argued for a well-researched reasonable point-of-view without inciting hatred, using swear words, or using facts that aren't based on anything?

If not, I would think that right-winged persons would be happy to have the nut jobs filtered out from their point of view. Sure the others might dominate in numbers, but it would also show that right wing are, on average, more reasonable than their unfiltered counterparts.

I'm seriously interested. Can someone point at examples?

Re:Who said Twitter has no bias?

[Oswald McWeany]

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".

So how about we break up Sinclair Media

[rsilvergun]

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.

Fact?

[rsilvergun]

You can use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true.

Seriously though, this post truth world is starting to creep me out.

Overton Window shifted

[rsilvergun]

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.

Re:Aware of "facts" yet unaware of their import

[DRJlaw]

I think the legal theory was that a provider that proactively polices its users' material for copyright infringement may become considered legally "aware of facts or circumstances from which infringing activity is apparent" without practical ability to recognize said "facts or circumstances" as such.

No, the legal theory was:

witter is not a government entity. They can do what they damn well please. They don't have to obey the 1st Amendment.

Yes, they can, but they can't have the safe harbor provision as they show to be checking for every post with a system, so they should be liable for every single copyright infringement on the platform.

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).

Re:Who said Twitter has no bias?

[dbrueck]

I'd only add that the concept that says, 'you're either left or right', is false.

Agreed. Or even, it's that very mentality that has exacerbated the problem.

Re:Nice slight of hand there

[Enigma2175]

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

No, those are not synonyms. From https://www.dictionary.com/bro... (the only definition, I'm not cherry picking):

right-minded [rahyt-mahyn-did]
adjective
having correct, honest, or good opinions or principles.

Being conservative has nothing to do with having correct, honest or good opinions. Try not to be so patronizing when you are wrong-minded, dear.

Re:Nice slight of hand there

[Enigma2175]

Capitalizing it doesn't make it change its meaning. You used it wrong, claimed it was a synonym when challenged on it and then doubled-down on your stupidity when shown proof. You certainly have the conservative mindset down pat.