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How would you feel about Twitter banning Trump?
- Thread starter Coyote Starrk
- Start date
I get what you're saying but I feel like banning him now would be taking responsibility at the last possible moment, far too late to actually be of use to anyone. It would only incite more righteous anger in his base, and that's the kind of thing that gets them to the polls in the middle of a pandemic. What he does with the ban does matter when they've waited this long. They're already responsible for what he's done so far. Abdicating that responsibility and giving him more fuel would be the worst possible combination.
The violence warning on his latest tweet makes it impossible to retweet apparently, so they're already partially there.
I honestly think he wants to be banned, so that he can cry "Censorship! Censoship!". Twitter adding these little moderation tags to his bullshit is 1000x better, because he doesn't get to play martyr and has to suffer someone wielding power over him.
Trump embarrasses himself most when he's angry. Let him be angry.
Trump embarrasses himself most when he's angry. Let him be angry.
They're well within their rights to ban him but they won't because he's too good for business. Big tech companies choose money over morals every time, this situation is no different.
OP
OP
Read this. It has to do with what Trump is trying to overturn and what Twitter could possibly give him the ammo to accomplish if they were to actually ban him.
Legal Shield for Social Media Is Targeted by Lawmakers (Published 2020)
Section 230, from a 1996 federal law, was meant to protect young internet companies from liability. Lawmakers have threatened to change it.
Tbh I think they have finally started to do a good job.
Flagging his posts is such a huge insult to his ego but also millions of impressionable people will get a chance to see why the website they use so much, thinks he is wrong. Lead them to links where facts are presented, sites these people may have never been to thanks to their upbringing or the bubble they live in.
It will also set a precedent for social media to be more responsible in general (hence the knee jerk hate reaction from zukerberg).
If they ban him, then there will be another Twitter just for conservatives. It will do nothing but neatly divide social media that already can be a bubble in its present state with less chance for the other group to peak in.
Flagging his posts is such a huge insult to his ego but also millions of impressionable people will get a chance to see why the website they use so much, thinks he is wrong. Lead them to links where facts are presented, sites these people may have never been to thanks to their upbringing or the bubble they live in.
It will also set a precedent for social media to be more responsible in general (hence the knee jerk hate reaction from zukerberg).
If they ban him, then there will be another Twitter just for conservatives. It will do nothing but neatly divide social media that already can be a bubble in its present state with less chance for the other group to peak in.
too bad free speech doesn't apply to private entities, only the government censoring you
I don't disagree with it being late, but it's still the right thing to do. I would have banned him after Charlottesville, personally. Every day after that Jack Dorsey is culpable for, and he will have to live with that. He can still ban him now, admit he should have done it earlier, and apologize. It's not too late to make a statement on his and his employee's behalf.
On one hand it would be very satisfying to see him banned, on the other hand his account gets him negative PR cycles, self goals, and even into legal trouble.
So there's pros and cons.
So there's pros and cons.
OP
OP
I don't care a whole lot about treating Trump equally. I think functionally it's probably the same or very similar, but that's not really my central concern. As the president of the United States, he is naturally in a unique position where his words have a global impact, so he should be approached based on that impact.
The advantage of keeping his words up is that it allows us to call them out. But not only does that absolutely require an active effort to point out the issues in his tweets, that isn't really a huge deal because Trump lying or being racist or giving approval to violence isn't new. He's done it before becoming president. We aren't gaining new perspective on him that way.
The advantage of removing his tweets is that it signals that they are abnormal and socially unacceptable. Trump has normalized white nationalism and various conspiracy theories, and banning him would both make it harder to do and make a statement that these things are not legitimate. That's what I think they should be banned.
Social media is not an innate problem in that it does have powerful positive value in impromptu reporting of serious situations. In the hands of underprivileged or minority groups, it can serve to drag issues into light.
What is a problem, however, is America's utter refusal to recognize hate speech legally and subsequently act on it. That allows American social media websites to take that same stance, leaving themselves to claim that the audience will resolve the problem while continuing ignoring the fact that it isn't working. With cultural values being what they are, sometimes that's the intention from the start with these platforms - see Reddit's giving awards to the creators of pedophilia communities or making claims about how pictures of dead babies is necessary for us to have good things.
The advantage of keeping his words up is that it allows us to call them out. But not only does that absolutely require an active effort to point out the issues in his tweets, that isn't really a huge deal because Trump lying or being racist or giving approval to violence isn't new. He's done it before becoming president. We aren't gaining new perspective on him that way.
The advantage of removing his tweets is that it signals that they are abnormal and socially unacceptable. Trump has normalized white nationalism and various conspiracy theories, and banning him would both make it harder to do and make a statement that these things are not legitimate. That's what I think they should be banned.
Social media is not an innate problem in that it does have powerful positive value in impromptu reporting of serious situations. In the hands of underprivileged or minority groups, it can serve to drag issues into light.
What is a problem, however, is America's utter refusal to recognize hate speech legally and subsequently act on it. That allows American social media websites to take that same stance, leaving themselves to claim that the audience will resolve the problem while continuing ignoring the fact that it isn't working. With cultural values being what they are, sometimes that's the intention from the start with these platforms - see Reddit's giving awards to the creators of pedophilia communities or making claims about how pictures of dead babies is necessary for us to have good things.
I think it would be a good gesture, but he will platform somewhere else and the message will get out some how. However, I do think a lot of his followers will be way too lazy to make new accounts on another platform to see his bullshit.
I think banning him is the right way to go. His followers were always go to spin, martyr, and deify him anyways. They have done that for years now.
Banning him would piss him off the most because it's a large part of his day to day routine. He would be forced to look for alternatives and use his less convenient methods of speaking to his followers. Take his toys away, one by one.
I don't think it will happen because Twitter is already feeling the heat from all this. I'm open to being surprised though.
Banning him would piss him off the most because it's a large part of his day to day routine. He would be forced to look for alternatives and use his less convenient methods of speaking to his followers. Take his toys away, one by one.
I don't think it will happen because Twitter is already feeling the heat from all this. I'm open to being surprised though.
Also, Trump's base has already been emboldened because he's been emboldening them. If he was telling Nazis that they were very fine people for carrying out their racist rallies, where they're encouraged to be hateful and violent without any special provocation, having a provocation isn't going to change much.
What are they going to do, try to replace the media with their own state media? That's not new either. Trump was associated with Steve Bannon, and through that to Brietbart. He's been an avid promoter of Fox News. Both of these groups have been constantly making efforts to demonize all media that isn't part of their conservative bubble. The president's been crying fake news since forever. The effort's already existed this whole time.
What are they going to do, try to replace the media with their own state media? That's not new either. Trump was associated with Steve Bannon, and through that to Brietbart. He's been an avid promoter of Fox News. Both of these groups have been constantly making efforts to demonize all media that isn't part of their conservative bubble. The president's been crying fake news since forever. The effort's already existed this whole time.
I'm oscillating between the first and the last answer. He should have been banned years ago, consequences be damned, but damn if social media isn't a cancer by itself. I think it's pretty clear that if this piece of shit and his sectarian followers didn't have access to Twitter, he wouldn't have won the election in the first place.
Social media was a mistake IMO - I picked the last one.
You could try to tell me all day that it "brings people together" - but IMO it does the opposite to a higher degree.
I'd like to see Trump get banned, censorship discussions aside - he's a piece of shit and I'd love to see him throw a tantrum for being banned from Twitter.
You could try to tell me all day that it "brings people together" - but IMO it does the opposite to a higher degree.
I'd like to see Trump get banned, censorship discussions aside - he's a piece of shit and I'd love to see him throw a tantrum for being banned from Twitter.
Ban him.
Strongly disagree with that last option. Social media are mostly shit, but they're a symptom themselves, like Trump. Trump is a symptom of white supremacy first and foremost. The moronic tech bro libertarianism is just another avatar of white supremacy, and they ultimately help each other. Social media are at best a signal booster, but the underlying issue is white supremacy.
Strongly disagree with that last option. Social media are mostly shit, but they're a symptom themselves, like Trump. Trump is a symptom of white supremacy first and foremost. The moronic tech bro libertarianism is just another avatar of white supremacy, and they ultimately help each other. Social media are at best a signal booster, but the underlying issue is white supremacy.
On one hand, I think they should. On the other, I'm sure his followers would burn Twitter to the ground for doing it.
Either way, at the end of the day it's giving a platform to too many fucked up people and IMO it's just made the world worse.
Not to mention how fucking fast misinformation makes its way through the world because of it.
I despise these companies. I just dispute the superficial causality at play here.
Banning him would prove the point that the media is out to get him, not banning him gives him the platform as a mouth piece.
Banning him only furthers the divide. Doesn't help/solves anything in the long-term. If he's banned he'll probably find another place to spew garbage.
To cure this thought illness we must administer a proper antidote. I think Twitter side messages (when he post misinformation) is way more hurtful to him than straight up banning. If he is, then he'll probably spin it anyway into a "see, social media is corrupt" retoric.
To cure this thought illness we must administer a proper antidote. I think Twitter side messages (when he post misinformation) is way more hurtful to him than straight up banning. If he is, then he'll probably spin it anyway into a "see, social media is corrupt" retoric.
Sooo, as much as I would love to see Twitter outright banning his bigoted ass, I am not really sure if they are able to...
I am certainly not an expert and would love for someone to correct me on this, but as far as I understand it, his tweets are considered 'presidential records.' I'm mainly going by this wiki entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVFEFE_Act
The way I interpret this is, since Trump's tweets are "considered official statements by the President of the United States," they really can't be deleted willy-nilly.
As far as his account goes "@realDonaldTrump reply threads constituted a "designated public forum" akin to a public meeting, and therefore blocking users based on their political viewpoints violated their constitutional rights to freedom of speech." It seems to me that the 'designated public forum' part also implies that those tweets should remain open for people to discuss and comment on them.
Can anyone shed some light on how accurate this is?
I am certainly not an expert and would love for someone to correct me on this, but as far as I understand it, his tweets are considered 'presidential records.' I'm mainly going by this wiki entry - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVFEFE_Act
The way I interpret this is, since Trump's tweets are "considered official statements by the President of the United States," they really can't be deleted willy-nilly.
As far as his account goes "@realDonaldTrump reply threads constituted a "designated public forum" akin to a public meeting, and therefore blocking users based on their political viewpoints violated their constitutional rights to freedom of speech." It seems to me that the 'designated public forum' part also implies that those tweets should remain open for people to discuss and comment on them.
Can anyone shed some light on how accurate this is?
He would be victimized for a day or two ... and then deplatformed.
I call that a win
I'm not sure what you're getting at with this line of thought.
I'm not a lawyer but the language in Section 230 is relatively simple and clear; It states "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider" and only that. It protects Twitter and its users (or any platform) from being held accountable for other users' posts.
I.E. Twitter is not responsible for Trump's posts. Nothing else.
Trump agreed to Twitter's TOS when he signed up. They have no obligation to leave his posts up, or unaltered. They are a private entity and are allowed to police their platform to their own rules. Saying "we do not want to host your content unaltered on our platform because it breaks the contract you agreed to when signing up" is in no way "acting like a publisher" or taking on responsibility for what he said. He does not have the right to a Twitter account and Twitter does not act as a publisher by offering the platform nor by regulating it.
This bill is unfortunately not law yet because it has not been passed by both bodies, only introduced in the House.
Trump's tweets can't be deleted by the government, because the government has to preserve records. Twitter is not a government entity so can do whatever they want. I am not a government entity, so I can print out trumps tweets and light them on fire, if I wished.
Same with blocking people on twitter. The government can't block people from viewing official statements from the president. Twitter is a private company and can do whatever they want, including unplugging all the servers in all their data centers, which would shut down the public forum.
Ban his private account. It's one less place for his brand of dangerous idiocy to be seen. Yes he'll squeal about censorship and bias and bla bla bla but he's doing that anyway so you may as well shut down the main platform.
Then assuming he just switches to the official Whitehouse account, just add fact checking links all over everything posted from there and/or hide tweets that break the terms of service as Twitter have apparently started to (finally) do.
It's long overdue, well deserved and I assume will really wind the little turd up.
Then assuming he just switches to the official Whitehouse account, just add fact checking links all over everything posted from there and/or hide tweets that break the terms of service as Twitter have apparently started to (finally) do.
It's long overdue, well deserved and I assume will really wind the little turd up.
not all.
80 million is A LOT of people .... most of them are probably just follwing because he is there. It is easy to follow someone, it is much easier to keep following.
To register in a new social media just to follow someone is a HUGE act of energy most people will not do