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Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

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Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#271

People are wondering "How far does this go? How can Twitter say this is not cool, but allow something like violent movies or games? Where's the line?" The leader of the United States encouraging law enforcement and the military to shoot American citizens for looting, that's the line.

It is literally the president’s job to command the military. If he gives a warning that looting will lead to shooting, it is not glorifying violence. It is a statement of fact. And looting always leads to shooting, regardless of who is saying it.

> It is literally the president’s job to command the military.

Even if one views the Tweet as a legitimate military command, which it is not, unless the government has seized Twitter with just compensation as required by the 5th Amendment, it is not Twitter's obligation to ignore its own standard sfor the purpose of relaying such orders by the President.

Otherwise, except as to explaining why Twitter opted for the public interest notice rather than simple removal, the President’s job is irrelevant here.

> If he gives a warning that looting will lead to shooting, it is not glorifying violence.

That doesn't follow from the preceding, and the statement as written glorifies violence, both potential future violence and specific historical violence by the government against it's citizens, in much better the same way (though far more proximate historically and thus much worse) that it would if Trump said “Kill them all, and God will know his own.”

> It is a statement of fact.

It is quite possible to state a fact (or make a threat which one has the power to declare execute, which is more the case here than statement of fact) while glorifying the outcome that would be produced and/or the past historical antecedent which is invoked.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#272

In fairness, Trump's tweets are not about actually doing anything, they are more about getting votes. So arguing the feasibility of suggestions outlined in a Trump tweet kind of misses the point.

This is my comment on the other HN thread about this:

> The phrase was used by Miami's police chief, Walter Headley, in 1967, when he addressed his department's "crackdown on ... slum hoodlums," according to a United Press International article from the time.

> Headley, who was chief of police in Miami for 20 years, said that law enforcement was going after “young hoodlums, from 15 to 21, who have taken advantage of the civil rights campaign. ... We don't mind being accused of police brutality."

This is where the quote comes from.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/where-does-phrase-...

Edit:

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-quotes-cop-sparked-rac...

> The National Commission on the Causes and Prevention of Violence found that Headley's remarks and policing policies had been a significant factor in sparking the riots.

> Headley died four months after the riots. The Times in its obituary noted his policies had caused "growing resentment" among black Miami residents.

Our President fully understands the gravity of those words. This is what he wanted to say. This is what he meant. This is what he believes. This is WHO HE IS.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#273

This is very interesting to watch unfold in real-time. I find it fascinating the President of the United States is ranting about 1st Amendment violations with regards to a private business. Pretty sure there is nothing in the 1st Amendment that says he is guaranteed the right to tweet. I hope Twitter takes this a step further the next time he violates their ToS and gives his account a 48 hour suspension. I understand…

With free speech it gets interesting how you interpret it. One interpretation, which I think Trump is using, is that "laws come last". There is a principle that says free speech should be protected and laws only come to cover the cases where the principle can be infringed. So twitter, in this interpretation, would be correct according to current law, but would stand on the wrong side with regards to a higher value of upholding the principle.

However there is another interpretation which says that ability to remove someone from your private business is also an expression of free speech. And that private companies as well as individuals are free to choose who they do business with. But there is one nuance here - this is better served under another principle which is "freedom of association". Freedom of association states that you can refuse to deal with anyone you don't like. However in USA this principle recently lost its value after certain group of Christians were not allowed to refuse baking a cake for a gay couple. So it seems there are certain protections.

But then there is a third thing which is that in some countries (and I am not sure here about USA) the president has the right to send a message using any media channel he sees fit, and the media channel cannot refuse. Informing and communicating with the public is one of president's duties and refusing to send his message infringes upon it. If USA has such a law and if Twitter could be interpreted as a media platform then it could be against the law for Twitter to do what it is currently doing. Unlikely thou, as twitter has a team of lawers and likely they were consulted beforehand.

> Zooming all the way out I don't see why Twitter really care about such a fight

Companies are ran by people and those people take political sides. Twitter is on the democratic party side, and the election season is coming. I predict we will se a bigger coordinated effort spanning Google, Youtube, and Twitter, and some other big corporations as we get closer to USA president election date.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#274

In fairness, Trump's tweets are not about actually doing anything, they are more about getting votes. So arguing the feasibility of suggestions outlined in a Trump tweet kind of misses the point.

It was a message, directly to law enforcement, that he thinks it’s okay for them to shoot protestors so long as there is looting. I can’t see how anyone would see that as anything other than a crime against humanity

I don't know why you're getting down voted. Trump's words are a quote of someone who believed that "... it’s okay for them to shoot protestors so long as there is looting."

Trump is very much saying he believes looter should be shot.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#275
post #264

@dang hey can we unflag this?

I vote we move the discussion to reddit, which is a better suited platform for politics.

I'm sorry, but technology does not exist in a vacuum insulated from the rest of the universe. An implementation of any given application, its code, its infrastructure, and its services may be apolitical, but as a platform that is used for communication it is important that conversations be had about how these platforms are used. Perhaps you can bury your head in the sand and pretend that society is not falling apart at the seams due in large part to the spread of misinformation across any number of internet forums and social media services, but I think the rest of us may have an opinion that is inimical to ignoring the problem.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#276
post #171

This is amazing news, and I hope Twitter adopts this policy for all rules violations. Much better than deleting tweet or banning accounts, this lets people decide what they want to see. (Except for obvious spammers etc. which should probably be banned.) Even better would be if there were user-configurable "lists", whereby you could decide upfront what you want / don't want to see (like many sites do right now with NS…

They made clear when they introduced this that the “view tweet anyways” approach applies only when the public interest for an account of a public official outweighs the significant harm they consider to be done by allowing what you describe for all users in general. I don’t expect they intend to change their mind on that.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#279
post #16

The service that hosts the accounts of all branches of the US military, all major weapons contractors, all three letter agencies, and many foreign militaries, governments, and world leaders guilty of all manner of war crimes, and this is where they draw the line for violence. Really interesting.

Also don’t forget that Hamas has many official twitter accounts in various languages.

Re: Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for “glorifying violence”

#280
post #273

This is very interesting to watch unfold in real-time. I find it fascinating the President of the United States is ranting about 1st Amendment violations with regards to a private business. Pretty sure there is nothing in the 1st Amendment that says he is guaranteed the right to tweet. I hope Twitter takes this a step further the next time he violates their ToS and gives his account a 48 hour suspension. I understand…

With free speech it gets interesting how you interpret it. One interpretation, which I think Trump is using, is that "laws come last". There is a principle that says free speech should be protected and laws only come to cover the cases where the principle can be infringed. So twitter, in this interpretation, would be correct according to current law, but would stand on the wrong side with regards to a higher value of…

Thank you for your insights.

> But then there is a third thing which is that in some countries (and I am not sure here about USA) the president has the right to send a message using any media channel he sees fit, and the media channel cannot refuse. Informing and communicating with the public is one of president's duties and refusing to send his message infringes upon it. If USA has such a law and if Twitter could be interpreted as a media platform then it could be against the law for Twitter to do what it is currently doing. Unlikely thou, as twitter has a team of lawers and likely they were consulted beforehand.

I looked into what powers the President of the US has in regards to sending a message and from what I found there are only specific rules (not sure if they are laws) for TV and radio to broadcast Presidential messages unaltered when asked.

Even if one was to interpret those rules to include the internet as well surely that would fall onto ISPs in that they must give unrestricted access to government services such as whitehose.gov rather than giving the President unlimited power of literally any US-based website?

I am sure if Twitter bans Trump's account he would push forward that he has unlimited power to communicate via any website he pleases although I have no idea how that would play out in the courts. It certainly goes against the small government position the Republican party talk about for businesses.

> Companies are ran by people and those people take political sides. Twitter is on the democratic party side, and the election season is coming. I predict we will se a bigger coordinated effort spanning Google, Youtube, and Twitter, and some other big corporations as we get closer to USA president election date.

I also think this. Seems Facebook has picked their side with Trump.

Me thinks Twitter has been planning for this outcome for a while now which is why they have held off on banning his account. I wouldn't be surprised if they take the step to ban him sometime in the not too distant future.

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