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Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

reuters.com

11–20 of 292 posts

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#11

Most of the discussion seems to be centered around freedom of speech and enabling dissenting voices, no matter how violent, but I think we're missing the bigger picture here. This represents a vast check on presidential power that exists purely in the hands of these incredibly wealthy and powerful social media executives. I don't necessarily disagree with Twitter's decision given the events of the last few days, but…

To some extent, it’s a problem Trump brought upon himself by relying so much on social media. If Twitter had banned Obama, well, people would barely have noticed, really. Most politicians just aren’t dependent on social media in the same way Trump is, and are generally much better behaved on it.

And what’s the alternative? Force them to provide service to every crazy person?

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#12

So today we had: * Reddit ban a number of pro trump subreddits (details at reddit.com/r/reclassified) * Twitter permanently bans Trump and a number of other influential conservative accounts * Discord has banned the donald win discord * Google banned Parler from the Play Store * Apple is strongly considering to do the same This will go down as a very important day in American Internet history. A very important week i…

And everyone cheers it on. :(

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#13

Most of the discussion seems to be centered around freedom of speech and enabling dissenting voices, no matter how violent, but I think we're missing the bigger picture here. This represents a vast check on presidential power that exists purely in the hands of these incredibly wealthy and powerful social media executives. I don't necessarily disagree with Twitter's decision given the events of the last few days, but…

He's the President. If he published somewhere else, such as his own government funded website, people would read him there.

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#15
post #5

Most of the discussion seems to be centered around freedom of speech and enabling dissenting voices, no matter how violent, but I think we're missing the bigger picture here. This represents a vast check on presidential power that exists purely in the hands of these incredibly wealthy and powerful social media executives. I don't necessarily disagree with Twitter's decision given the events of the last few days, but…

I actually think that Trump, of all people, is the worst to try to make that case with. At the click of his fingers he’ll have cameras from every major news network and reporters from every newspaper in a room to listen to what he says. Inevitably whatever he does say will be on Twitter instantly. Not that it matters that much because the majority of the country aren’t even on Twitter. They read about his tweets in n…

I dunno. I think this is precisely an example of why hard cases can make good laws - not that were making laws here yet, but the OP definitely brings up a good point about the general matter.

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#18

So today we had: * Reddit ban a number of pro trump subreddits (details at reddit.com/r/reclassified) * Twitter permanently bans Trump and a number of other influential conservative accounts * Discord has banned the donald win discord * Google banned Parler from the Play Store * Apple is strongly considering to do the same This will go down as a very important day in American Internet history. A very important week i…

Pizzagate is real.

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#19

Most of the discussion seems to be centered around freedom of speech and enabling dissenting voices, no matter how violent, but I think we're missing the bigger picture here. This represents a vast check on presidential power that exists purely in the hands of these incredibly wealthy and powerful social media executives. I don't necessarily disagree with Twitter's decision given the events of the last few days, but…

I sincerely doubt that Twitter actually significantly enhances presidential power. Unlike normal people presidents can get on national TV to directly communicate with the general public. He’s got plenty of ways to message millions of people like mass email, or even just sending a letter to news agencies etc. Twitter was useful politically, but it probably hurt as much as it helped.

Further the president can literally call in air strikes or offer blanket pardons etc. They are often called the most powerful men in the world for good reason.

Re: Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules

#20
Something that isn't being talked about anymore: Trump chose twitter. He chose to stay on it, to use his personal account, to use it as his primary method of communication.

US presidents have the biggest, loudest loudspeakers available at their fingertips. Obama's administration had a whole protocol about how to use Twitter as one of their official comms medium and not have it be a de facto one. Biden is so far following it.

Trump brought this on himself. (And btw, you can believe this, AND believe the ban is a good thing, AND believe twitter and media companies have too much power. These things are consistent)

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