Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

Twitter's platform is private, not public. Twitter should waste no more time in making that crystal clear.

If you own the printing press, you get to decide what you print. If it were otherwise -- if the government, or anyone else, could control what we said and didn't say with our private resources -- well, that's not anywhere any of us really wants to live.

As with all things trump, the man spends his days flailing about from one tantrum to the next with no actual focus or initiative. Bluster all day, every day.

1. The veracity of twitter’s fact checking. This absolutely does not matter, since Twitter may host or refuse to host whatever they want on their own website, including incorrect fact checks if that’s how they get their jollies (not that there’s any evidence that their fact checks have been incorrect so far, because there isn’t). On the other hand, Trump doesn’t have the same right, because he doesn’t own Twitter.com

2. Hate speech, and whether it is ever justified. Again, this doesn’t matter. Twitter has the right to remove (or visibly flag as the case may be) any post they want on their website, for any reason they want. They might do so because a post is hate speech, but they’d be just as firmly within their rights to do so for any other reason.

I think all of the confusion in these comments exists because the law is very simple, but many folks here don’t like the conclusion:

1. Twitter may fact check, flag, or remove the posts of Trump or any other user completely at their discretion, even if their fact checking turns out to be incorrect. Nothing about this violates Trump’s first amendment rights in any way.

2. I had hoped this was obvious, but in case it’s unclear to you, Trump and the US government absolutely do not have the power to shut down or punish Twitter in any way just because they don’t like the way that Twitter has fact checked Trump’s posts. This would in fact (obviously) violate Twitter’s first amendment rights.

Finally, there is no legal distinction between a “platform” and a “publisher” that in any way restricts the control that a business has over their own website. Anyone who claims otherwise is simply incorrect, and not worth listening to.

You are missing the point. Using objective reporting to paint a bad person in a bad light is exactly what "the media" should do.

I went to cnn's homepage and clicked on this article[1]. Lets look at the first paragraph:

> President Donald Trump's use of the bully pulpit to defy his own government's advice on face coverings has turned into the era's latest ideologically motivated assault on science and civility. His noncompliance is a symbol of his refusal to adopt the customary codes of the presidency during a crisis and his habit of turning even a dire national moment to political advantage.

You can't possibly call that objective reporting. The factual content is true, but highly highly subjective and filled with inflammatory language.

Saying "Trump refuses to wear a facemask in defiance of $HealthExpert's advice" is objective. Calling that act "an assault on science and civility" is a heavily inflammatory and subjective stance.

To be clear, I don't disagree with CNN here. Trump is being dumb. But you can't pretend like CNN is objective or unbiased.

CNN, like all news media, is a private, profit seeking corporation who will pander to their audience to generate ad revenue. And there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But turning around and treating this multi-million dollar corporation as the sole arbiter of absolute, objective truth is plain foolish.

[1]https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/politics/donald-trump-covid-m...

EDIT: Some argue that this is an opinion piece and so my point is invalid. Up in the top left corner, this article is marked as "Analysis by $Author" instead of just "by $Author". They don't label it as an opinion, and they don't place it differently on their home page. It is an analysis on current events, written by a CNN reporter, hosted on the CNN front page. This is an explicit endorsement of the content of the article, and it's crazy to say that CNN is absolved of all journalistic integrity because this article is an "analysis" versus "regular" news. The only difference is the addition of the single word "Analysis" hidden in the top left corner. This article is clearly meant to be treated as any other.

I suppose that is the problem with using examples, though. People would rather pick apart the example rather than face the larger claim. Without examples, of course, the point would be dismissed as unsubstantiated. It's just not possible to change people's minds, I guess.

EDIT 2: This is what an actual opinion piece looks like: https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/21/opinions/trump-racist-tweet-m...

They disclaim that the article is the authors opinion, they host it in the opinions section, and have opinion in the header, etc. The article I linked is not an opinion piece.

It doesn't need to be a solved problem to provide value by flagging highly questionable content. And many statements are known to be false or misleading, and providing info to people who don't know better is a step in a positive direction.