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Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

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Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#21

Post by rayiner »

akomtu wrote: post #15
thinking4real wrote: post #7

“The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.” Oh that’s hilarious. After tech companies stifling a sitting president, now they are going to straight faced claim this like it means a damn thing. This is insulting to users’ intelligence.

If corps are people, then it's men with multiple personalities disorder, with the number of personalities sometimes reaching tens. A few years ago one group of neurons (VPs) was in charge, and they believed that free speech is bad. Today another group of neurons has taken control, and they believe that free speech is good.

It’s the same neurons. They just realized that alienating half the country is bad for business.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#22

Post by 0xy »

thinking4real wrote: post #7

“The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.” Oh that’s hilarious. After tech companies stifling a sitting president, now they are going to straight faced claim this like it means a damn thing. This is insulting to users’ intelligence.

It's a coincidence this happened after the midterms. Totally not a political decision at all.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#23

Post by peterashford »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #10

It was insane that this ever happened, honestly. I'm interested to hear what history decides, but it's hard to sympathize with.

Obviously, your intuition differs, but my view (as a New Zealander) is that Trump absolutely broke the terms of use of the platforms he was on and deserved being banned. Free speech means that you can't be imprisoned for your political views, not that everyone owes you a platform.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#24

Post by el_benhameen »

0xy wrote: post #22
thinking4real wrote: post #7

“The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.” Oh that’s hilarious. After tech companies stifling a sitting president, now they are going to straight faced claim this like it means a damn thing. This is insulting to users’ intelligence.

It's a coincidence this happened after the midterms. Totally not a political decision at all.

Trump-endorsed candidates underperformed in the midterms and in previous elections. Trump talking hurts the party. If anything, keeping him off the platforms until after the midterms helped Republicans.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#25

Post by Jordrok »

cma wrote: post #18
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #10

It was insane that this ever happened, honestly. I'm interested to hear what history decides, but it's hard to sympathize with.

Didn't he break rules normal people would be banned for?

Absolutely. Any other normal person would have had their account permanently banned with no recourse.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#26

Post by blockwriter »

peterashford wrote: post #23
lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #10

It was insane that this ever happened, honestly. I'm interested to hear what history decides, but it's hard to sympathize with.

Obviously, your intuition differs, but my view (as a New Zealander) is that Trump absolutely broke the terms of use of the platforms he was on and deserved being banned. Free speech means that you can't be imprisoned for your political views, not that everyone owes you a platform.

It does mean more than not being imprisoned. For example, if the government came to Facebook and told them to remove all posts by a certain politician, violations of the platform’s rules notwithstanding, I believe that would also be a violation of America’s first amendment.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#28

Post by NtochkaNzvanova »

stonogo wrote: post #9
thinking4real wrote: post #7

“The public should be able to hear what politicians are saying so they can make informed choices.” Oh that’s hilarious. After tech companies stifling a sitting president, now they are going to straight faced claim this like it means a damn thing. This is insulting to users’ intelligence.

Is it so hard to believe that this argument eventually actually prevailed within the organization?

Yes? I'd speculate the discussion in fact went something like this:

1. Trump supporters have been made an example of by keeping a bunch of them in jail for years for the crime of walking through a building;

2. There are enough court cases and grand juries outstanding against Trump that one of them will eventually get him and he'll be banned from running again;

3. In any case, a plausible primary rival for Trump has emerged (DeSantis) who has enough flaws of his own (anti-vaxx, anti-woke) that we can use him as a punching bag for the next few years;

4. Trump was allowed back on Twitter but is still playing on his own platform;

Therefore:

We can safely win some PR points by pretending to give a crap about freedom of expression by letting Trump back on our platform.

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#29

Post by stonogo »

NtochkaNzvanova wrote: post #28
stonogo wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it so hard to believe that this argument eventually actually prevailed within the organization?

Yes? I'd speculate the discussion in fact went something like this: 1. Trump supporters have been made an example of by keeping a bunch of them in jail for years for the crime of walking through a building; 2. There are enough court cases and grand juries outstanding against Trump that one of them will eventually get him and he'll be banned from running again; 3. In any case, a plausible primary rival for Trump has e…

>the crime of walking through a building;

Why are you introducing inflammatory irrelevant misreprentations of the facts instead of addressing the point of my question?

Re: Meta Ending Suspension of Trump’s Accounts

#30

Post by 0xy »

el_benhameen wrote: post #24
0xy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a coincidence this happened after the midterms. Totally not a political decision at all.

Trump-endorsed candidates underperformed in the midterms and in previous elections. Trump talking hurts the party. If anything, keeping him off the platforms until after the midterms helped Republicans.

Maybe they underperformed because the platforms he used to win in 2016 banned him? Make no mistake, Trump won in '16 because of Twitter & FB reach.
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