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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

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Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#101
Can this even be considered a free speech issue? They aren't deleting his tweet, only displaying it alongside a fact check. Of course you can try to call into question the impartiality of the fact check but that is a long way from not deciding not to show the content.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#102
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.

What was blatantly wrong about it?

Nothing. Facts don’t matter Only feelings. His tweet hurt our feelings

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#103

Is no-one going to talk about how this is explicitly what "freedom of speech" means? That Trump is one of the few people that "freedom of speech" doesn't apply, because it's protection FROM HIM doing exactly this kind of thing. Twitter has every protected right to criticize the president (which they should have been doing a whole lot more of but that's a different discussion). That's the whole point of "freedom of sp…

> Trump is one of the few people that "freedom of speech" doesn't apply

No, Trump is one of the few people that the first amendment of the constitution of the United States doesn't apply. Free speech is broader than any specific law, whether you think people deserve it or not.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#105

Free speech is not just an American constitutional right; many countries throughout the world consider free speech to be a human right. So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are kicked off platforms, because they are being silenced, sometimes to the point of being shut out of the modern internet entirely (when their rights to a DNS address are comprehensively removed). Hate speech and lies are terrible…

Okay, so I think there's some nuance there, I think there's a pragmatic line to draw - I don't think someone has a right to say anything on twitter, I just don't think that's twitters role is to be neutral. But I think there's a line where we go from a product that's curated and moderated - something like twitter, to something that is truly infrastructure. The DNS example is great, I don't think a DNS company should be able to refuse to service based on the content that's being served because the role of the DNS is simply to resolve a name to an address. What's served on that address is immaterial. I think we draw a bright line between those two types of things, although I'm sure it's more difficult than that when we're trying to design a law.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#106
post #67

The problem inevitably has flared up: Twitter's head of integrity leading this push has previously tweeted that Trump is a Nazi and accused the flyover states of being racist. https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1265463081997484032 This isn't going to end well, and unless Twitter is going to exercise this impartially (which is impossible given a human is involved), they are going to lose their platform status, and…

> This isn't going to end well, and unless Twitter is going to exercise this impartially (which is impossible given a human is involved), they are going to lose their platform status, and justifiably so.

This isn’t how the law works, and Trump’s enemies, the Democrats, control the House of Representatives.

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects the ability of online services to moderate content, this has been repeatedly upheld by the courts. The only way it could change is if the Senate, House, and President agree on a new law and pass it.

If you want to learn more, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#107
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.

Mail-in ballots make it much easier to commit voter fraud, I don't see how anyone could possibly argue to the contrary. https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

It's got nothing to do with voter fraud which is another conspiracy tagline for his base to hang their propaganda on. His whole intent is to make it harder to vote and reduce voting % as much as possible in order to amplify his rabid base votes who will move heaven and earth to vote and keep their racist dear leader in power.

This isn't news to anyone, he's openly said Republicans would never be elected again if it was easier to vote.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#108
I notice this post is flagged.

HN will do what it do, but I can't escape the feeling that in an era where a President uses Twitter, HN will become less relevant as a technological discourse destination if it lacks the will to touch the ramifications of technology and politics combined.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#109
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.

Mail-in ballots make it much easier to commit voter fraud, I don't see how anyone could possibly argue to the contrary. https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

So you're telling me that The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank, set out to prove how rampant an issue voter fraud is (as this is a seeming tent-pole of Trump's push to delegitimize any election that goes against him) and they came up with a whopping 1,285 cases across the entire US?

What I see is that they've proven that voter fraud is not a problem in the United States. And, by extension, that there is no problem with mail-in-balloting leading to voter fraud. Looking at two states that only vote by mail, they have 27 cases of voter fraud in THE LAST TWENTY YEARS.

Voter fraud, whether in person or by mail, IS NOT A PROBLEM. It's simply Trump working to sow the seeds of insurrection should he lose in November.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#110

"Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices" Reddit is the best example of that. I don't want to defend him but look at every single news and politics related sub from /r/news, /r/worldnews, /r/politics etc. But that happens here too. Honestly I blame the upvote downvote system more. Reddit and HN are both really wrong with it

How is reddit silencing conservative voices? Downvotes don't count. There's plenty of conservative and right leaning subreddits with a lot of activity.

Just because there's not as much traction or acceptance among the users of reddit for conservative or right-wing ideas, comments etc. doesn't mean Reddit itself is actively silencing voices. You can't force people to not downvote things they don't like or agree with.

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