Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–108 of 108 posts

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#101

Post by rq1 »

jaredklewis wrote: post #99
rq1 wrote: post #77

I completely and fundamentally disagree with Trump and his “ideology”. But how can we agree on the principle of censorship? I mean, if we agree with the idea of censorship, we also mechanically agree to get censored tomorrow by whoever is the new censor. Shouldn’t it be the same rule for everyone?

Well Twitch “censors” (aka moderates their platform) all the time and Trump is not the first account on Twitch to be disabled, so certainly Twitch would argue that they are applying “the same rules for everyone.” More broadly, I disagree with your use of the word “censor.” Trump can say whatever he wants. But it doesn’t follow that if some company doesn’t want to publish his book or stream his video that it’s censors…

He’s still the president of the USA. Not a random person.

I’m not talking specifically about Twitch.

At the moment where they make their platform public, they have no political nor moral authority to say what’s good or bad.

Tomorrow if the leadership changes, they can on the contrary censor everything but not Trump and you’ll have nothing to say then.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#102

Post by jaredklewis »

rq1 wrote: post #101
jaredklewis wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well Twitch “censors” (aka moderates their platform) all the time and Trump is not the first account on Twitch to be disabled, so certainly Twitch would argue that they are applying “the same rules for everyone.” More broadly, I disagree with your use of the word “censor.” Trump can say whatever he wants. But it doesn’t follow that if some company doesn’t want to publish his book or stream his video that it’s censors…

He’s still the president of the USA. Not a random person. I’m not talking specifically about Twitch. At the moment where they make their platform public, they have no political nor moral authority to say what’s good or bad. Tomorrow if the leadership changes, they can on the contrary censor everything but not Trump and you’ll have nothing to say then.

> I’m not talking specifically about Twitch.

Ok, but this article is about Twitch.

> At the moment where they make their platform public, they have no political nor moral authority to say what’s good or bad.

So anything that is "public" cannot have moderation? A chess forum has to allow Osama bin Laden to post his political rants? Should it be illegal to run a website with moderation?

> Tomorrow if the leadership changes, they can on the contrary censor everything but not Trump and you’ll have nothing to say then.

I'll say the same thing I am saying today: it's their own platform and they can moderate it however they want. If I don't like their moderation, I am perfectly capable of going elsewhere.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#103

Post by giarc »

alistairSH wrote: post #64
marcusverus wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. The unspoken tragedy is that a large number of candidates should be a good thing. Any primary system that can't endure a significant number of candidates is the wrong system. Both parties have broken primary systems that need to be thrown out and re-made for the modern era.

Exactly. The primary system we have in place is an abomination - it's tailor-made to elect lunactics. Some sort of approval voting or instant-runoff would probably provide better outcomes.

In Canada (where I'm from) our party leaders are elected by the party members. Whenever there is a change in leader, there is some party convention and paying members of the party are asked to vote. Anyone can pay to be a member, but it's not a public vote like in the states. I wonder if this produces better or worse candidates? With our parlimentary system, we also don't vote for our Prime Minister, we vote for our local representative.

I think it's obvious if the US worked this way, the Republican party wouldn't have selected Trump. Perhaps you end up just electing the same old boring white guy time and time again.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#104

Post by alistairSH »

giarc wrote: post #103
alistairSH wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The primary system we have in place is an abomination - it's tailor-made to elect lunactics. Some sort of approval voting or instant-runoff would probably provide better outcomes.

In Canada (where I'm from) our party leaders are elected by the party members. Whenever there is a change in leader, there is some party convention and paying members of the party are asked to vote. Anyone can pay to be a member, but it's not a public vote like in the states. I wonder if this produces better or worse candidates? With our parlimentary system, we also don't vote for our Prime Minister, we vote for our…

In the US, voting is decentralized (state control their own election/ballot processes). The parties control their own candidates.

So, we have primaries for each party. Some states are open (anybody can vote, but only for one party's candidates) while other states are closed (only party members can vote). Then, after the primary winners are selected, there is a general election where to select among each party's winners.

Most of these elections are plurality, although some states require majority (with runoff between 2 top candidates).

Basically, this leads to extreme candidates winning the primaries, then trying to pivot to center for the general election. It also means that if a primary has many options, as the GOP 2016 primary did, you get results like Trump - all the reasonable candidates cancelled each other out.

Pivoting to approval voting would be relatively easy - the ballots don't change much (just allow 1+ choice per race). We could maintain party/state primaries and a national general, but move them all to approval. That would avoid 3rd party spoilers and hopefully prevent the fringe of either party becoming the nominee/winner.

This ignore the added complexity of the Electoral College. That's an anachronism for another post.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#105

Post by newacct583 »

incrudible wrote: post #96
newacct583 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is, then it's a crazy legal loophole and Trump would just be the first to exploit it. Sorry (and apologies to Godwin but this is legitimate) but Hitler taking power in 1933 was through a "crazy legal loophole" too. Just stop it. Take it seriously. This was a failed coup, but still a coup. Historically, failed coups (c.f. Hitler in 1923) often get repeated, successfully.

> Sorry (and apologies to Godwin but this is legitimate) but Hitler taking power in 1933 was through a "crazy legal loophole" too. Perhaps, but that wasn't a coup. Hitler actually won a democratic election. > Just stop it. Take it seriously. This was a failed coup, but still a coup. I think that's called a "coup attempt". Call it whatever you want, it is what is, not what it could have been. Either way, it couldn't h…

> Perhaps, but that wasn't a coup. Hitler actually won a democratic election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933

His election to chancellor was arguably democratic. Everything that created the Third Reich was para/extra-legal machinations (c.f. the Reichstag fire!) of exactly the form that we saw attempted on Tuesday.

Trump and his mob weren't nearly as talented, so they failed. I still remain horrified that you won't take seriously what happened.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#106

Post by craftinator »

ghthor wrote: post #100
dimal wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's one thing to say there will be an orderly transition of power, but the events of yesterday already made that statement false, and those events were incited by him. So saying something calming out of one side of his mouth doesn't excuse what he's saying out the other side.

They were not incited by him.

Sweet argument bro. Also, the earth is flat.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#107

Post by incrudible »

newacct583 wrote: post #105
incrudible wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sorry (and apologies to Godwin but this is legitimate) but Hitler taking power in 1933 was through a "crazy legal loophole" too. Perhaps, but that wasn't a coup. Hitler actually won a democratic election. > Just stop it. Take it seriously. This was a failed coup, but still a coup. I think that's called a "coup attempt". Call it whatever you want, it is what is, not what it could have been. Either way, it couldn't h…

> Perhaps, but that wasn't a coup. Hitler actually won a democratic election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enabling_Act_of_1933 His election to chancellor was arguably democratic. Everything that created the Third Reich was para/extra-legal machinations (c.f. the Reichstag fire!) of exactly the form that we saw attempted on Tuesday. Trump and his mob weren't nearly as talented, so they failed. I still remain horrifi…

Enough with the pearl clutching. Everybody condemned the riot, including Trump. He may have caused it, but he did not lead it.

Trump had four years to aggregate power through emergency laws, like Hitler. He had a golden opportunity to do so with COVID. He did not do it.

As much as you may want Trump to be like Hitler, so that you may call him and his supporters fascists, the actual facts do not support it. I stand by that. Feel free to disagree.

Re: Twitch disables Trump’s account indefinitely

#108

Post by craftinator »

incrudible wrote: post #75
craftinator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The part that says there's "an orderly transition of power". This has been Trump, forever. He strings together contradictions in every sentence he can, and when he can't, he makes sure to contradict or make a random topic change within the next sentence. Why does he do this? It's a rhetorical trick. That means every time he speaks, most people find something in it that they want to hear. He makes sure not to say an…

Of course I want to hear that there will be an orderly transition. I do not necessarily disagree with your general analysis, but what are you implying here? That he is still hedging a plot for a coup? Doubtful. The fact of the matter is that until yesterday, it made complete sense for Trump to cause a huge scene to scare the electors into tossing the election. Today it does not, the election is over, there is no reco…

Late getting back to this response, but I think it's still relevant.

> but what are you implying here? That he is still hedging a plot for a coup? Doubtful.

I think that you are giving him credit he's not due. He's not someone who creates and executes long term, complex plans. He acts on emotion; whatever he's feeling right then, and takes actions that will coerce people into feeling the same way.

He's angry that Biden won and that the certification of the vote is going to happen. Thus the certification is bad, and anyone going along with it is bad, so he says whatever will make the crowd think it's bad.

> The fact of the matter is that until yesterday, it made complete sense for Trump to cause a huge scene to scare the electors into tossing the election.

No, that's not a fact. This was never going to happen. The electors were never going to get scared and overturn the will of the voters. He's a simpleton; he didn't like that he was losing, so he demonized everyone involved with that bad thing that he doesn't like. This is something he's been doing his entire life, and it's effective as long as he has the money, influence, and smart people on the payroll to shape his vitriol and gusto into reality.

Post reply on HN