751–760 of 1001 posts
IMHO there are things that are much more scary than some trespassing into government buildings or a riot. The possibility that we might slide backwards from traditionally liberal ideas spawned from the enlightenment is utterly terrifying. And we are rapidly heading in that direction.
I feel like after the twin towers were blown up. It was less than 100 individuals that were the impetuous for one of the worst pieces of legislation I know of. The Patriot Act. Which was voted on in a complete state of fear. Creating an extra judicial process for people who fit into a given category. I fear the reaction to this, which I'd argue is why Twitter needed a great press release to justify banning Trump (whi…
IMHO there are things that are much more scary than some trespassing into government buildings or a riot. The possibility that we might slide backwards from traditionally liberal ideas spawned from the enlightenment is utterly terrifying. And we are rapidly heading in that direction.
Liberal ideas from the enlightenment are alive and well. Now if the government had banned Trump from speaking, then you would have a point. Twitter banning Trump is, at root, a business making a business decision. Here's reality, and I'm going to date myself here, but there were, long ago, enormously popular digital spaces called BBS's. You could chat, play games (MUDs mostly), etc etc. They are, by and large, no lon…
Why is there a difference between Twitter, Inc making such decision and Verizon Communications. Neither are government.
The only reasonable argument that I can think of is that Twitter holds less of an monopoly to their users than Verizon. That however seems to me as up to interpretation, and not about the question about what is or isn't private property.
I understand how Twitter says that these are relevant to the recent events, but it feels like they were just sitting around waiting for him to tweet something they could latch onto to use as a reason to remove him. Because these tweets seem innocent compared to so many of his others. Really not sure how I feel about this though... weighing between the benefits of allowing open speech on “town square” Internet forums…
> these tweets seem innocent compared to so many of his others. I think they wanted to say that the context matters. I.e. with actual violence happening not long ago and with a possibility of more violence in future, I’d say that posting relatively innocent tweets contributes to building tension.
They are already planning for the 20th on different platforms. It just takes one more tweet from DJT to light another fire.
And the problem is these people don't care what the content is, they read what they want to read because the Q conspiracy is insane. Even if he tweeted "mmm my mcdonalds burger tonight is extra good" they would read something insane into it
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the logic isn't that hard. Person says bad things to whip up a mob - Twitter unsure to take him seriously or literally. Mob actually materializes and several people die - Twitter sure they now have to take him literally
Black Lives Matter is still allowed on Twitter. Dozens of people have died from their protests and riots, not to mention hundreds of businesses vandalized, looted, and set afire. Ditto Antifa. This ban is utterly political, which, depending on how "libertarian" you are, may be fine. But the precedent is not a good one in my opinion.
https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-di...
"While the summer of 2020 experienced 100 days of violence and destruction in cities, according to the the U.S Department of Homeland Security, the most recent CCC study of 7,305 separate events in May and June suggests that 96.3% of events involved no property damage or police injuries and 97.7% of events had no injuries reported. Pressman spoke with UConn Today about the new report."
In contrast, the attack on the capital building was a deliberately violent attack on the seat of our national government. Rioters brought zip ties to potentially hold lawmakers hostage, blunt force weapons, and firearms. It was inherently a violent undertaking with revolutionary aims.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the logic isn't that hard. Person says bad things to whip up a mob - Twitter unsure to take him seriously or literally. Mob actually materializes and several people die - Twitter sure they now have to take him literally
A left-wing aligned media business has just taken a serious political action against the sitting president. They didn't even wait for the dust to settle and Trump to leave office. Twitter has not had time to link tweets in the internet world to actions in the real world; there is normally a settling after this sort of event where it turns out that what actually happened was different to the first two weeks of media r…
https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-f...
IMHO there are things that are much more scary than some trespassing into government buildings or a riot. The possibility that we might slide backwards from traditionally liberal ideas spawned from the enlightenment is utterly terrifying. And we are rapidly heading in that direction.
Yes, like trespassing into government buildings for the purpose of preventing a peaceful, lawful democratic transfer of power.
Protest is compatible with democracy. What happened two days ago is not. If you don't like the outcome of an election, you can complain about it, you can be a nuisance about it, you can talk about it. What you can't do, is try to carry out a coup.
Does anybody have a solution to the bigger underlying question of de-platforming and censorship on online platforms? As far as I can tell, there are two general viewpoints: a) Censorship is bad, free speech is good. You should counter bad arguments with better arguments. b) There are types of speech, which are proven to lead to violence in the long-run. Also, some things can be proven as untrue. Lies are bad. I have…
When the people making those arguments, and the people consuming them, are not interested in "better" or even "factual", then this is an exercise in pointlessness.
People are motivated to disseminate and believe in things which fit their worldview, and they will continue to do so regardless of little things like counter-arguments or even provable facts that outright contradict their fantasies. They will continue to disseminate things they know to be false as it fits their narrative.
The marketplace of ideas is a failure in the age of social media.
IMHO there are things that are much more scary than some trespassing into government buildings or a riot. The possibility that we might slide backwards from traditionally liberal ideas spawned from the enlightenment is utterly terrifying. And we are rapidly heading in that direction.
Liberal ideas from the enlightenment are alive and well. Now if the government had banned Trump from speaking, then you would have a point. Twitter banning Trump is, at root, a business making a business decision. Here's reality, and I'm going to date myself here, but there were, long ago, enormously popular digital spaces called BBS's. You could chat, play games (MUDs mostly), etc etc. They are, by and large, no lon…
This ban seems to heavily take advantage of the current moment, as it's obvious that he has tweeted worse things in the past. It's strange that they picked such a poor way to justify the ban when they could have made a significantly stronger case, and in doing so could have convinced millions more people that they are trying their best to apply policies evenly. For example, I have a hard time imagining why they chose…
1. His tweets didn't incite angry mobs to assault federal buildings before
2. Some time ago when Twitter was defending why they aren't banning his account, they said something about this effectively being a public government account so banning it would do more bad than good (and instead Twitter went ahead and "annotated" his tweets instead of just removing them). This determination had both pros and cons for Trump, the pro being much harder to ban his account but the con being that he couldn't block people from replying to his tweets anymore. With him now out of office his account loses that status so it should be much easier to ban it.