Live data from Hacker News

Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

techcrunch.com

111–120 of 1001 posts

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

#111
Well, Facebook and Twitter are currently used in cyberwarfare to destabilise western democracies and the result is pretty impressive, because it works.

Give people their Facebook but remove the algorithms from the timeline and close all groups to make it harder for people to spread misinformation and group together to celebrate it. Or close it all together, social media doesn't have that many upsides. My observation from more than ten years with those tools.

No idea where the problem lies in Twitter but marking tweets with lies and conspiracy stuff is a step in a good direction.

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

#112
post #72

Honestly just more proof that we need decentralization of the Internet. Handing over control of our digital platforms and identities to 3rd party for-profit companies is not the way the internet should work.

Trump could start his own Mastodon or Gab server for his legions to follow him on. His campaign certainly has the resources.

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

#113
post #6

Good, I hope this forces them to decide whether to be neutral platforms or publishers. They've been having their cake and eating it too for far too long.

I hope they take Trump head-on, and declare an affirmative right to freedom of the press that does not violate safe-harbor policy.

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

#114
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...

"There is NO WAY (ZERO!) that Mail-In Ballots will be anything less than substantially fraudulent. Mail boxes will be robbed, ballots will be forged & even illegally printed out & fraudulently signed. The Governor of California is sending Ballots to millions of people, anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there, will get one. That will be followed up with professionals telling all of these people, many of whom have never even thought of voting before, how, and for whom, to vote. This will be a Rigged Election. No way!"

The claim is not that it's easier to commit fraud. The claim is that allowing vote-by-mail compromises the integrity of an election. That's why it's important to show that voter fraud is quite rare (your link includes cases back to 1990 at least) and has a fairly high chance of being detected. Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and Utah conduct elections entirely by mail. Trump voted by mail!

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

#115
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…

To clarify, he didn't call Trump a Nazi. He said there are "actual Nazis in the White House" which could be a reference to staff or appointees.

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

#116

"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

There is trend in American conservatism to take increasingly hostile and indefensible positions, and that trend has been met with counter trend that increasingly marginalizes those voices. Arguing for limited government is not likely to get a huge reaction from any given public platform. But arguing in favor of debunked conspiracy theories that make false allegations or defending the president's frequent personal attacks on individuals can and probably should be met with downvotes. Just like any personal attack should be.

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

#117

The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.

lol what, he is biased for pointing out misinformation from a prominent public figure, after years of Twitter being criticised for allowing false information to proliferate?

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

#118

The head of integrity has unabashedly showcased his strong political bias on Twitter, and I suspect things will begin going poorly for either him or Twitter shortly.

twitter is a private organization. Regulating the speech of private organizations is a dangerous slope to be on.

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

#119
post #89

For the most part, I support platform neutrality. I don't agree with all the Google censorship of misinformation and "misinformation" on their platforms. I think Facebook should have less evil algorithms (it seems designed to encourage polarization), but I wouldn't want censorship or commentary their either. This case is an exception. Twitter drew a line in the sand. It is in exactly the right place. The PoTUS is thr…

> It is in exactly the right place

If they start fact-checking everybody, it is. Otherwise, they're just campaigning for the other side.

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

#120

"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

Reddit literally censors the actual Donald Trump campaign subreddit: it's hidden behind a scary warning screen and demonetized https://old.reddit.com/r/The_Donald . Hilarious. They don't even pretend to be unbiased or to care about their userbase that's equally on both sides of the political spectrum.

Reddit resisted doing that for years, until the violations of Reddit's site-wide rules became too blatant and widespread to continue ignoring.
Post reply on HN