Twitter suspends Trump's campaign account TeamTrump for violating its rules • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by shripadk » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #118

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #74

Is anyone concerned by the coordinated efforts of Facebook Google, Twitter, Discord, Reddit, and Apple today? If these groups and individuals that were banned were violating the TOS before, why did they leave them in place for so long? How do these companies decide when to enforce their rules, since obviously it's not immediately? And do they make deals with one another (I'll ban someone you don't like if you ban som…

A historic event occurred - how could you take that to mean it was coordinated?

A historic event for whom? The United States right? Social Media operates in 100+ countries. What happened in USA is historic for you maybe. Not for us. USA is not the World.

Regimes fall every now and then. Coup attempts happen all the time. I have never seen media or social media ban any Government account over it.

I guess Social Media has a different conscience for when regime change/coup-d'etat happens in say Iraq vs when it happens in USA.

What this has done is set a very bad precedent. The Big Tech is acting like Supranational Powers overriding what Elected Governments can and cannot do. Remember that the transfer of power hasn't completed yet. Trump is still the elected President of USA until 20th of January.

If Big Tech can do this to a sitting elected President, it can do it to anyone else. No Government in the World is safe from Big Tech censorship.

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

#142

Post by ethbr0 » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

DonHopkins wrote: post #104

kristofferR wrote: post #83

The storming of the Capitol was another 9/11 type of event, we are now in the same climate that lead to the Patriot Act, war, torture and countless other abuses. People are cheering on the bans without thinking further of the massive negative consequences this slippery slope will likely lead to. Glenn Greenwald did an excellent interview yesterday where he explained exactly why acting hastily after traumatic events a…

The 9/11 event was Trump being president during the Corona virus pandemic. His incompetence has been killing more people every day than the number of people killed on 9/11, for quite some time now.

The 9/11 takeaway is that we should be especially skeptic of making large policy decisions and/or restricting civil liberties after an emotional event, because it's usually an overcorrection that goes unredressed for the next two decades.

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

#143

Post by valvar » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #53

It's going to be exhausting watching people explain how the First Amendment works, ad nauseam, over the next few days.

It's already exhausting to explain that free speech is not a technicality, and that the constitution is not a formalistic document.

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

#144

Post by sk5t » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #86

leptoniscool wrote: post #72

The First Amendment applies ONLY to the government: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. There's no legal reason a private company cannot manage its content?

One could argue these companies are extensions of the government when they collude with the NSA to illegally spy on Americans.

That doesn't sound like a good-faith argument to me. Is Boeing the government also? AT&T? Did Chrysler become the government during the WW2 supply push?

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

#145

Post by bmarquez » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

1MachineElf wrote: post #63

nsoonhui wrote: post #6

A dupe of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25695741

Weird how the old one got flagged. Is there a reason why this shouldn't be discussed on HN?

The old one was a duplicate of an earlier post.

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

#146

Post by tjr225 » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

another_sock wrote: post #127

tjr225 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Theyre free to find another platform or make their own. Nice try though.

Yes and when AWS shuts them down and ISPs block them, they are free to make their own servers and ISPs. And when the financial system shuts down their banking and all of their family members' and public supporters' banking, they are free to create a new banking system as well (assuming they can pay the regulatory fees and have people lobbying for them of course)

I’m not even going to pretend you’re attempting to make an argument in good faith.

One could argue tech companies have a monopoly problem but you’re just saying a private company should allow anyone to say anything on their platform and throwing a ridiculous slippery slope out in front of it.

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

#147

Post by 4234 » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:32 AM UTC

wtfiswiththis wrote: post #114

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #74

Is anyone concerned by the coordinated efforts of Facebook Google, Twitter, Discord, Reddit, and Apple today? If these groups and individuals that were banned were violating the TOS before, why did they leave them in place for so long? How do these companies decide when to enforce their rules, since obviously it's not immediately? And do they make deals with one another (I'll ban someone you don't like if you ban som…

No. They led a coup. There should be hangings. End of discussion.

[flagged]

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

#148

Post by threatofrain » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #74

Is anyone concerned by the coordinated efforts of Facebook Google, Twitter, Discord, Reddit, and Apple today? If these groups and individuals that were banned were violating the TOS before, why did they leave them in place for so long? How do these companies decide when to enforce their rules, since obviously it's not immediately? And do they make deals with one another (I'll ban someone you don't like if you ban som…

Even the heads of state for Canada, the UK, and Germany all attributed blame for Trump, which is diplomatically very unusual for allied nations.

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

#149

Post by bun_at_work » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #103

ErikVandeWater wrote: post #74

Is anyone concerned by the coordinated efforts of Facebook Google, Twitter, Discord, Reddit, and Apple today? If these groups and individuals that were banned were violating the TOS before, why did they leave them in place for so long? How do these companies decide when to enforce their rules, since obviously it's not immediately? And do they make deals with one another (I'll ban someone you don't like if you ban som…

It's very concerning. This is a coordinated political action with unprecedented scale. You may agree with the action this time, next time you may not.

Do you have any evidence that it's coordinated?

Twitter banned some stuff temporarily the other day, now they upgrade those bans and add some more. Google removes parler from the Play Store today, a different action (not banning trump). Apple didn't ban anything, but is considering it.

These seem like different actions by different companies, responding to the same news.

Also, pedantic as it may be, it's not political action. These companies are not political entities. Just because groups of people communicate about politics on the platform doesn't make them political.

What we are seeing is major internet companies responding to and banning perpetrators of treason and sedition, of domestic terrorism.

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

#150

Post by AnthonyMouse » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 3:33 AM UTC

afavour wrote: post #5

save_ferris wrote: post #3

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…

Something really weird happened with Donald Trump.

He had a tendency to say things like "I got twice as many votes as Obama did when he was reelected." (I don't think he actually said that one, but it's hard to find a real example when... they deleted his twitter account.)

And then that isn't true. Trump got ~74M, in 2012 Obama got ~66M, that's not twice as much. But it's more. So if they run the story correcting it, they're running a story that tells people that Trump in 2020 got more votes than Obama did when he won in 2012.

At some point the media got tired of this, but what are they supposed to do about it? If they don't correct it, the claim stands unopposed. If they do, they're still running the story Trump really wanted, telling people he got more votes than Obama.

They eventually started omitting the context. So then the headline becomes "Trump lies that he got twice as many votes as Obama" and then that's the entire story. No mention of how many there actually were. But that didn't work, because then the first comment on the story is from some Trump supporter providing the actual numbers and you're back to having a story about Trump lying that still benefits Trump.

So then they want to do something about the Trump supporters because they keep providing the inconvenient context that Trump's controversy generator left there on purpose. So they censor them in some way. But then the supporters feel wronged -- being punished for saying something true -- so they support Trump even harder and it backfires.

The whole thing made them so angry that they're now willing to cross every line in order to destroy him. But the current strategy seems to be to censor him as much as possible so that nobody sees the rebuttal to the rebuttal because nobody sees the rebuttal because nobody sees the original claim.

Which might actually work to destroy Trump, but only by destroying a structural pillar of the democratic process at the same time. And anybody who thinks that such a weapon, once used, will only be used once, is delusional.