If Trump (or anyone) blocks you but you still want to read his tweets: Chrome incognito mode or log out of Twitter problem fixed lol
El Presidente should not have the power to exclude certain citizens from their communications.
[deleted]
Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
61–70 of 87 posts
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#62> Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. Herein lies the problem: Trump does not want to block his critics from expressing their thoughts - he can't do that anyway. Nor can he truly block them from seeing his tweets. He wants their replies not to be part of the conversation started by his tweets. They…
Sure, but that's exactly the problem. The President having direct control over the visibility of somoene's speech. It's one thing if someone simply isn't popular, and therefore their speech isn't widely seen. It's another for the President to specifically suppress your speech.
It really does constitute a first amendment violation, because it is an active decision to suppress the specific speech of specific individuals.
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#63In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very c…
In traditional media, there are different rules for public figures than there are for private citizens. I think the same thing should apply to Twitter. Verified accounts should not be able to block anyone.
Verified accounts are not “important”, they are what is says on the tin: verified. The feature is meant to help people who were impersonated, not famous. That nuance got lost very fast on celebrities who like any pretext to feel more important, but I think we would loose a lot by not understanding what it means. For instance, employee accounts on any platform have a de facto similar role because they can be used to authenticate both company message, and more.
Verified accounts are those likely victim of abuse, and I believe that is it likely that if you suffer from impersonation, you also suffer from trolls. Verified accounts are the most likely candidate for the need for more protection.
Something else that is at stake, and something that you are explicitly asking for – but I think it‘s a serious mistake: the dichotomy between celebrities and commoners. There never were a clear gap, there, but the idea that being on TV, in the press, or owning land made you special has proven dangerous. Having a gradient from moderately interesting anyones, to popular people within their social context, to relevant expert, opinion leader, up to professionally famous people, that “smoothness” of fame is a great, empowering change that the Internet has brought and made visible.
I think we need to understand that, and adapt (currently blunt) disclosure rules to that smoothness: you can make something a little bit more famous than they are, but you can’t shift them by several orders of magnitude because the attention, grief, consequence of that is something that needs to be learnt, understood, accepted.
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#64In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very c…
> he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time.
I thought blocking just prevented you from seeing their replies.
Per this article, but it's super old:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/twitt...
Did they change how blocking works after this?
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#65> Trump could “mute” users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights. Herein lies the problem: Trump does not want to block his critics from expressing their thoughts - he can't do that anyway. Nor can he truly block them from seeing his tweets. He wants their replies not to be part of the conversation started by his tweets. They…
Sure, but that's exactly the problem. The President having direct control over the visibility of somoene's speech. It's one thing if someone simply isn't popular, and therefore their speech isn't widely seen. It's another for the President to specifically suppress your speech. It really does constitute a first amendment violation, because it is an active decision to suppress the specific speech of specific individual…
How does one account muting another suppress their speech? Everyone else still sees the tweet.
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#66In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very c…
has blocked people on twitter
information must not be disseminated
in a way that isn't available to
everyone at the same time
If a twitter account posts public tweets, access to view and read is effectively unrestricted. There is no practical reason a person would be unable to view them, blocked or not, other than their choice to authenticate with twitter.
Being "blocked" just means you can't reply, while logged in as an identifiable twitter user id.
A flow chart of choices available, for how to look at a twitter feed would likely resolve this conundrum.
To argue about this is to say something like: "I could not read the disclosure, because it was on page 39 of the Wall Street Journal and page 27 of the New York Times. It needs to be on the front page, because that's the only page my clipping service sends me."
If you couldn't find a way to view a public twitter feed, how is that different from failing to take the initiative to turn to page 27 of the news paper, that can be perused for free at a news stand?
Where do you draw the line? Does not having internet access count as a restriction? What about not having a twitter account? What about not owning a computer? What about not owning a smart phone? Is making an announcement on a website not a technical restriction by default? Why or why not?
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#67In a slightly related topic to blocking people on twitter, Elon Musk is being investigated by the SEC for a whole whack of things he shouldn't have done. 1) Release material information without alerting the exchange to stop trading and 2) and this is the tie in, releasing said information on his personal twitter account. Now this is normally fine based on RegFD but he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very c…
> he has blocked people on twitter and RegFD is very clear that information can't not be disseminated in a way that isn't available to everyone at the same time. I thought blocking just prevented you from seeing their replies. Per this article, but it's super old: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/twitt... Did they change how blocking works after this?
Yes, I can't speak to when but Twitter displays a very obvious "You have been blocked by this user"-type message instead of their tweets if you attempt to view their profile.
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#68The judiciary acting against Trump in this case may ultimately work against them. This judge just invented the concept of free speech rights on the internet, even on a private platform like Twitter. I fully understand that legally this is very different the issue of Facebook or Twitter "censoring" conservatives (and as a conservative, I actually support their right as private companies to operate as they see fit), an…
The amicus brief from the Internet Alliance makes that fear very clear: they demanded clarification that those decisions only apply to interactions with accounts that are clearly used as policy tool by the US Government.
For me, the fact that this is the personal account and not @potus is the outlying factor. The court was explicit that, because policy was announced from that account, it made it a Government tool, subject to a lot of rules. To me, this is a smart move, warning the next President: make sure that all communications where you use the power of the office are from @potus, because otherwise, National Archive will get into your DMs. If encourages to define a line between the West and the East Wing (the personal residency) and extend it to social media.
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#69Does this mean all public officials are not allowed to block twitter users? Or this court ruling only works on Trump?
I suspect that, just like you have physical guards protecting official buildings from abuse, and their right to evacuate disruptive citizens has been established, there will be a case of a (probably local) government account willing to flag, or block a very annoying troll.
The peculiarity of this case is more that Trump’s thin skin and refusal to understand how the First Amendment applies to him.
Re: Trump unblocks more Twitter users after U.S. court ruling
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
In traditional media, there are different rules for public figures than there are for private citizens. I think the same thing should apply to Twitter. Verified accounts should not be able to block anyone.
No, that's terrible, too. The stars of Star Wars, Episode VIII were harassed off social media by a bunch of trolls. No one should be forced off social media by trolls.
Couldn’t blocking just stop those people from communicating with you? You could still read all you want.