Twitter’s official statement on this is one for the history books: https://mobile.twitter.com/Policy/status/1349059275461685250
It's strange how they think they are part of an open internet movement.
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Uganda bans social media ahead of election
31–40 of 76 posts
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#32Twitter’s official statement on this is one for the history books: https://mobile.twitter.com/Policy/status/1349059275461685250
> Access to information and freedom of expression, including the public conversation on Twitter, is never more important than during democratic processes, particularly elections.
The jokes write themselves
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#33Twitter’s official statement on this is one for the history books: https://mobile.twitter.com/Policy/status/1349059275461685250
What's the link? twitter banning a single user for repeatedly breaking the rules is comparable to a countries government banning the social network ahead of an election? seems tenuous.
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Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#34Should elected officials be allowed to use social networks to communicate with the people? I don't consider myself a traditionalist, but this is one area where I prefer to see elected officials use government and journalistic channels for broadcasting information.
But what's the definition of a journalistic channel?
The White House has an official twitter account, also a Youtube channel and a Facebook account. That's a reasonable use of social media, don't you think?
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, yeah, it's a dictatorship run by warlords. It turns out that once you shut down the leader of the world's largest empire, every tinpot thug who fears losing their ability to control their citizens will shut down access to your platform. Whoda thunk? It has nothing to do with right and wrong and everything to do with realpolitik.
It has nothing to do with Trump at all. They shut all these sites down in 2016 too - https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/463407/
"It has nothing to do with Trump at all" might be a strong assertion, but this history is absolutely relevant. Thanks for sharing.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#36Twitter’s official statement on this is one for the history books: https://mobile.twitter.com/Policy/status/1349059275461685250
It's funny.
The first tweet condemns internet shutdowns. In the second tweet they say they suspended a number of accounts targeting the election in Uganda.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#37I saw Twitter's Public Policy team melting down about this. What did they expect? Pandora's Box has been opened
Nonsense. This ban was not a result of the backlash Trump is suffering. The government of Uganda didn't take some principled stand, here.
I can confidently say that it would have happened anyways, because banning Twitter and Facebook has already been used, multiple times, by various governments in an attempt to illegitimately retain power.
The only Pandora's box that has been opened is one of domestic American politics... And that lid was popped open ~5 years ago. You can't easily put that genie back in the bottle, now.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has nothing to do with Trump at all. They shut all these sites down in 2016 too - https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/463407/
"It has nothing to do with Trump at all" might be a strong assertion, but this history is absolutely relevant. Thanks for sharing.
I don't think it's a particularly strong assertion. Museveni's pattern around elections and dissent has been EXTREMELY consistent since I first started living there 20 years ago.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#39The difference, as I understand it, is that the government made the choice for people rather than a private organization. Under the US constitution, free speech means that the government cannot limit your speech except in narrow circumstances. This has no bearing on private organizations, which is why Twitter can ban users.
This is splitting hairs. Twitter has no problem booting millions of people off their platform for political purposes. Clearly, they also don't mind that a rising competitor (Parler) was put out of business overnight. Yet, they don't like it when a country blocks them. This is hypocrisy, regardless how people might try to distinguish one kind of "blocking" from another. It would be better if Uganda didn't block social…
It would be best of all if social media did not exist.
Re: Uganda bans social media ahead of election
#40This doesn't look good for Twitter, but comparing blocking an entire country from social media a few days before an election and blocking a few leaders who have clear ties to inciting violent riots via conspiracy theories seems like a false equivalence. Instead of justifying censorship as "good" or "bad" in some essential fashion, I think it's important to be clear about the context. EDIT: In fact, Twitter has done m…
> clear ties to inciting violent riots https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1347302588434284544 Twitter selectively enforces their rules, largely targeting conservatives.
Are you saying the personal comments of a MSNBC reporter are equivalent to the personal comments of a sitting US president or Senator?