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

Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 112 posts

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#81

Post by NullInvictus »

Trump can still write whatever he wants. He can still publish through the White House press. He can contact press, or communicate as American Presidents have always done. He is not being forcibly gagged as a whole. He has freedom to speak, just not where he pleases.

I feel like people are conflating "Freedom of Speech" with the "Freedom of Platform". This is an important difference. If I send a letter to Bloomberg or The New York Times, no one would find it surprising or wrong when they decided to not publish it (for ANY reason). If I violate their commenter section policies, they remove it and no one blinks. They decide what's on their platform without answer.

I am not against the idea of governments guaranteeing certain freedoms and access to platforms, but they currently do not exist as far as I understand. Saying some right has been newly violated is somewhat silly, especially given that the subject in question is a member of a political party who has fought tooth-and-nail to preserve this exact right for businesses -- to arbitrarily chose who they do business with. That is what we're contending with.

TL;DR: The discussion needs to be recentered.

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#83

Post by slowmovintarget »

yalogin wrote: post #54

I don’t get the rationale used there. A president is not forced to use Twitter or any other social media. If they choose to use it then they have to abide by the rules of the platform, and the platform should impose the rules as they see fit. Forcing the platform to change the rules because of a special person is a slippery slope.

Right. The President of the United States has the "Bully pulpit" from which to talk. This Twitter thing was because we had a person in office who ignored the dignity of office in favor of tweeting because he didn't like his people telling him he shouldn't say certain things.

He never should've been tweeting while in office in the first place.

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#84

Post by V-2 »

scj wrote: post #77
V-2 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is "current perception" really common, or just what the loudest voices demand? And even if it is common, in my opinion the very idea of free speech is that it may go beyond the commonly held notions of acceptability. It seems kind of pointless otherwise - what's widely accepted already shouldn't really need much protection. Eg. penalization of blasphemy in theocratic societies surely passes the test of "freedom of sp…

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater... Can you incite a riot, or hatred? What about representing fictions as fact in the news? What are the limits of satire? The American answers to these questions aren't the same as they are in other nations. While I don't fully agree with some of my nation's answers to these questions, at least I theoretically have a democratic voice in what those standards and laws are. But s…

"You can't yell fire in a crowded theater..."

Is it a matter of free speech though?

If you walk into a bank and say "load the bag with money, or I'll blow up the place", do you risk prosecution on the grounds of (abusing) free speech? After all what you did, essentially, was utter some words. (The bomb might never have existed).

What if the government passed a law to the effect of "you can't say the banking system is vile and corrupt because it may encourage people to rob banks"?

It's a slippery slope of sorts, and a line should be drawn, preferably grounded in some logical principle. I don't have a good answer off the top of my head; just food for thought.

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#85

Post by dmwallin »

Frost1x wrote: post #67
dmwallin wrote: post #27

Having the government govern free speech doesn't get you free speech. If the problem is social media companies that are so large they suck up all the air in the room then solve THAT problem and enforce existing anti-monopoly laws.

I tend to agree with this sentiment. Unfortunately, I think even outside the oligopolies of tech, we have another underlying issue where even in a competitive market, market consensus can arrive that runs counter to democratic ideals. I'd be surprised if all the tech providers actively coordinated on this. I'd be more willing to believe they all saw Trump as a threat to business and an overhanging risk for their busi…

The government of the United States itself is based on a separation of powers, with limited and specific ways for one branch to affect the other. You can see this in multiple ways, legislative, executive and judicial divisions, but also state vs federal. I would argue that government vs business vs the populace is another unstated but extremely important one. Given that the right of free speech is one of the primary tools both business and the populace use to regulate government I would argue that it's not worth loosening its protections. We already have plenty of tools to deal with excess business power already if we can get both government and the populace on board.

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#86

Post by user-the-name »

V-2 wrote: post #84
scj wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater... Can you incite a riot, or hatred? What about representing fictions as fact in the news? What are the limits of satire? The American answers to these questions aren't the same as they are in other nations. While I don't fully agree with some of my nation's answers to these questions, at least I theoretically have a democratic voice in what those standards and laws are. But s…

"You can't yell fire in a crowded theater..." Is it a matter of free speech though? If you walk into a bank and say "load the bag with money, or I'll blow up the place", do you risk prosecution on the grounds of (abusing) free speech? After all what you did, essentially, was utter some words. (The bomb might never have existed). What if the government passed a law to the effect of "you can't say the banking system is…

"Slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#87

Post by Arnt »

V-2 wrote: post #42
Arnt wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US law laws for free speech, and it has societal norms, too. What norms people expect to apply in the fora they use, most prominently Facebook. So they haven't updated their laws to match the current society's norms, and the result is that Facebook has to write rules for something approximating all of society. That cannot be simple for Facebook, and I think it's a bit cowardly of the two big parties that neither…

Is "current perception" really common, or just what the loudest voices demand? And even if it is common, in my opinion the very idea of free speech is that it may go beyond the commonly held notions of acceptability. It seems kind of pointless otherwise - what's widely accepted already shouldn't really need much protection. Eg. penalization of blasphemy in theocratic societies surely passes the test of "freedom of sp…

That question of current perception is IMO a political question, and leaving it to Facebook to answer is what's wrong.

Merkel's done the right thing: She has tried to answer it, and bring the laws into line with what the Germans think currently think is just. (With which I may or may not agree, it doesn't matter, I'm not German.) Her attempt may or may not be a good attempt, but she did try. The Americans talk about the first amendment and turn Facebook into something that looks ever more like a combined lawmaker and court.

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#88

Post by scj »

V-2 wrote: post #84
scj wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater... Can you incite a riot, or hatred? What about representing fictions as fact in the news? What are the limits of satire? The American answers to these questions aren't the same as they are in other nations. While I don't fully agree with some of my nation's answers to these questions, at least I theoretically have a democratic voice in what those standards and laws are. But s…

"You can't yell fire in a crowded theater..." Is it a matter of free speech though? If you walk into a bank and say "load the bag with money, or I'll blow up the place", do you risk prosecution on the grounds of (abusing) free speech? After all what you did, essentially, was utter some words. (The bomb might never have existed). What if the government passed a law to the effect of "you can't say the banking system is…

Whatever the limits may be... The heart of the problem is that the answer should be derived through the local democratic process. Not imposed on you by foreigners (and that means Americans in the German and French cases).

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#89

Post by shortandsweet »

qzw wrote: post #75
shortandsweet wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't get you free speech but what it does give is power to the people to decide. Elections of those law makers. There is no avenue for the people in the current model.

I would be very wary of giving even more power to those who already have plenty of power. Also, there's no constitutional right to an audience. Everyone that gets kicked off of Twitter can continue to say anything they like, but they don't get to access the built-in audience that Twitter provides.

Says who? You? Me? Twitter? The board? The US government? The judges? The legislators? The executives? Potus?

Re: Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

#90

Post by osgovernment »

user-the-name wrote: post #65
osgovernment wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be much more worried about governments telling me what I can/can't say, rather than private companies not letting me use their platforms to say it.

So you'd prefer being silenced by people who you have no control over, rather than a government you elected?

I'm not being silenced. I can setup a website easily or my own Mastodon, or whatever else. If I really wanted to make it more censorship-resistant I'd use IPFS and a decentralized JS framework for real-time communication.
Post reply on HN