Live data from Hacker News

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

blog.twitter.com

771–780 of 1001 posts

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#771
Relevant XKCD: https://xkcd.com/1357/

Proof that you could literally be the President of the United States and society will still be justified in muzzling and deplatforming you if what you have to say is too dangerously inappropriate -- with or without the government's help.

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#772
post #657
post #44

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…

IANAL, but one possibility that comes to mind is that these examples are specifically chosen to limit liability. For example, if they banned Trump today based on comments he made a month ago, then someone could sue twitter for allowing speech they themselves admitted caused violence.

> then someone could sue twitter

Twitter is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which states in relevant part, "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." 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1).

Here, Twitter is the provider of the interactive computer service (Twitter) that will not be treated as publisher or speaker of the information (tweets) provided by another information content provider (@realDonaldTrump). Therefore, Twitter will not face any civil liability for Trump's tweets.

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#773
post #558

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I think it will have some negative 2nd/3rd order effects. that they haven't yet realized. This is correct. The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation. I’m sure that’s not what we need, but I’m also sure that there is no good way out of this mess.

> The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation. I’m sure that’s not what we need, but I’m also sure that there is no good way out of this mess. I actually think that the reason we are in this mess is because there have been zero consequences for terrible behavior, so far. Of all the terrible things Trump has done, it has taken inciting a riot, an attempted overthrow of our democrati…

He should have stuck to bombing weddings in Afghanistan and Yemen, like Peace Nobel winner Barack Obama did.

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#774

There is no argument for censorship, suspension or banning, based on our 1st amendment—- on any of the multiple platforms doing so. I came on here just to check what the “young intellectual tech” community thinks— I consider myself part of it. I’m a 20-something female who has been heavily involved in tech for my short career. Heads up: This isn’t animal farm, this is 1984! I never post on here and stopped reading aw…

Funny coincidence, I was enjoying JP's Ted Talk an hour before you posted this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79zra755WgA

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#775

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I made a comment before to the effect, what happens when you are banned permanently from the biggest social media platforms currently in existence? Will these bans carry over and will they start to affect any who oppose the bans or simply parrot what he says elsewhere? Will these spawn new social media sites or will they damage existing ones or do both? This is all so fascinating and frightening at the same time. Peo…

Trump will take up shop on Parler and be welcomed with open arms.

Parler is dead, aka banned by apple and google 1-2 hours ago.

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#776
post #44

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…

This seems like a very "engineer" response to what went on in that it misses the forest for the trees, and I don't mean that in a derogatory way (I often do it myself), just in a matter-of-fact sort of way. On one hand, I agree with you, the actual content of those tweets is much milder than what he has tweeted before. On the other hand, that absolutely does not matter, at all. 99% of people aren't even going to read…

Using that logic you are banning him because riots happened; Banning him for actions that occurred outside of twitter.

Is the beginning where people get banned from social media for being part of a unwanted group. A case could be made for preventing anyone who has gone to jail from being on the platform in the efforts to cutdown on future crime / increase children safety, etc.

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#777
post #432

This has been an embarrassing incident to those in power because it made them look weak. But calling a populist movement with millions of supporters, terrorists is very short sighted. It will only accelerate the fire. The left soon will control all three branches of government, after an election that many people question, has been simultaneously advocating for censorship of its political adversaries, more draconian c…

I agree with you. I think there is something wrong with the way we are reacting to these people and it's ratcheting up every day. I personally think they are deplorable and retrograde and, above all, willfully ignorant. But there is something wrong with this entire system and the path forward feels as untenable as the path we've been on. There has to be a detente, but I would never suggest that amongst my orbit of pe…

I agree. I'm left leaning and if I read Reddit I see the same hateful arguments that people on the other side of the political spectrum use. The words may differ but the arguments are the same.

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#778

We don’t have to imagine. #BLM incited many riots which killed many people, what action did Twitter take there?

It is accurate to say BLM incited riots? I'll counter with this: BLM organized protests which were peaceful and then bad actors incited riots. What happened on the Capitol was not peaceful from the outset--people came up, climbed the wall, broke through the entryway, took a podium, etc.--they started it.

The order of events has troubled me since the beginning.

People came to a protest. Trump made a speech on the stage. People got incited to rush the building by what was said.

But then we the events that say that people constructed bombs at home and organized an attack far in advance, and traveled to the protest in order to rush the building.

The odd thing is that I heard similar narratives about BLM riots. In some it was said that BLM organized protests which were peaceful, but which later turned into riots. Other say that the rioters was people from outside that had planned the rioting in advanced and traveled to the protests.

Are all four versions true, or only a subset?

Re: Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump

#780

Is it just my perception, or is their actual justification using the 2 quoted tweets kinda weak? Interpreting his boycott of an event as a call to violence seems like a huge stretch. It seems like they wanted to shoehorn a justification using his 2 latest tweets when the actual reason goes back further.

When I saw the cryptic 1 sentence tweet that he wasn't going to be there, the first thing that came to mind was that he was telling his supporters indirectly that they could do whatever they wanted since he wouldn't be in harms way. So perhaps it is a huge stretch to some, but we need to remember it is also not a stretch at all to many, especially given the recent events. Therein lies the danger.

This is the same type of conspiracies that the right is accused of having. Was there anyway that he could have announced he was boycotting the inauguration and it wouldn't be taken this way by some?
Post reply on HN