Live data from Hacker News

Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

techcrunch.com

51–60 of 1001 posts

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#51
post #22

I’m an outsider (not American, don’t live in America) so I’m almost not entitled to have an opinion on the matter, but it always strikes me as fairly odd when people of one persuasion or another rail against the ‘bias’ that they perceive against them in one circumstance or another (including media coverage). Of course people see bias against them. It’s classical confirmation bias: every time something goes their way,…

This is basically true. Liberal or conservative, everybody I talk to who can communicate ideas without injecting vitriol into every word agrees that 90% of "censorship" of conservatives is just censorship of standard low-value hateful garbage, and that genre of speech, while committed on all sides, is highly overrepresented by conservatives, which makes life hard for the majority of conservatives who are rational.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#52
Wasn’t it Voltaire who said “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”?

Nonetheless, this is pretty much par for the course for what the world has come to expect.

Edit: It turns out that though phrase is often attributed to Voltaire, it was actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall, as noted by the poster below, to whom I am grateful for the correction.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#54
Free speech is not just an American constitutional right; many countries throughout the world consider free speech to be a human right.

So, yeah, many of us get a bit worked up when people are kicked off platforms, because they are being silenced, sometimes to the point of being shut out of the modern internet entirely (when their rights to a DNS address are comprehensively removed).

Hate speech and lies are terrible, but they’re not the only thing being silenced.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#55
post #39
post #27

It is crazy to see how well he knows his base and how to get them to rally close to an election. Making them think everything is a liberal bias against them, and if they don't vote for his big government agenda they will receive a big government agenda. This is just one more way for him to get his base to believe everything he says versus people who actually prove what he says is a lie. He wants state run media and s…

And this is specifically on a tweet calling the validity of the election into question. It's blatantly wrong, but he needs his base to believe him when he says the election is rigged.

Mail-in ballots make it much easier to commit voter fraud, I don't see how anyone could possibly argue to the contrary.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/docs/p...

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#56
post #11
post #2

He won't though, obviously.

Complaining loudly that social media platforms are "biased" is a way to get special treatment without any official enforcement action.

Indeed, hence why Facebook fired their reviewers for public content during the 2016 campaign.

But given that that worked out so well, I'm sure there's no problem :P

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#57
post #52

Wasn’t it Voltaire who said “ I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it ”? Nonetheless, this is pretty much par for the course for what the world has come to expect. Edit: It turns out that though phrase is often attributed to Voltaire, it was actually Evelyn Beatrice Hall, as noted by the poster below, to whom I am grateful for the correction.

Actually, no, turns out it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall[0].

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evelyn_Beatrice_Hall

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#58
post #50
post #29

The comments here are surprising, to say the least. I just ask that some of you actually take a step back and realize what you're defending here.

The comments defending the fact checking? Or the comments defending it is okay for big government to step in and threaten to close a private company over fact checking?

The latter.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#59
post #33
post #25

So he just admitted that fact checking is suppressing conservative voices? That's awesome.

He's also admitted that voter suppression is the main reason Republicans even get elected[0]. God help us if we ever get a competent authoritarian into office who's cunning enough not to say the corrupt part out loud. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-vot...

To your point, Trump being out in the open with his BS is probably what his base likes. I have family members who think that he is a great president, go figure.

BTW, I view most politicians from both parties, DNC, and RNC to be corrupt, controlled by special interests.

Not to go to far afield here, but I will vote for either a democrat or republican based on public records of who their donors are. Turns out that based on this criteria I usually vote for Democrats but not always.

Re: Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

#60
post #33
post #25

So he just admitted that fact checking is suppressing conservative voices? That's awesome.

He's also admitted that voter suppression is the main reason Republicans even get elected[0]. God help us if we ever get a competent authoritarian into office who's cunning enough not to say the corrupt part out loud. [0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/03/30/trump-vot...

You call it voter suppression, other people call it election integrity. If ballot harvesting is allowed and you don't need an ID to vote then fraud becomes much easier.
Post reply on HN