Instead of debating whether social media platforms should or shouldn't have silenced the president, and what their role was in inciting the crowds to "insurrection", shouldn't we be discussing instead how to completely remove them from the political sphere? Never before in human history have we had privately operated for-profit organisations with so much power and influence over the running of countries. Social media platforms should never have been allowed to become the arbiters of democracy.
The violating content they removed was trump repeating the same stolen election crud he's been saying for a month and then __urging the protesters to go home peacefully, preserve law and order, etc__.
For those that don't want to play a video this is an unabridged transcript:
"I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election and everyone knows it especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt. It's a very tough period of time, there has never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home, we love you, you're very special, you've seen what happens you've seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace."
I was watching a live stream from the mob and the protesters (the buffalo costume guy, in fact) were trying to get other protesters to leave on the basis of trumps message and people were believing the claim was fake because twitter restricted sharing so the only way to see it was to directly go to the page.
The insurrectionists were there because they falsely believe the election was stolen, and half of that video was him saying "yep, you guys are correct". He's done this shit before where he vigorously fans the flames but then gives a half-assed concessionary call for peace that his followers know to ignore.
They were there in the first place because of his message
I expect there’s been some increasing call at Twitter to basically ban trump since 2016. I expect it’s mostly grown since the summer or so. I think of this move as being less about the specifics of the event than it is about that event making more people agree with the group that want to ban trump, allowing them to take a stronger action.
I feel like the “Twitter internal politics” explanation is more convincing than eg some small committee of expert moderators looking at trumps tweets and carefully deciding if they break the rules, balancing that with public interest considerations, and deciding if some restrictions should be placed on them
>The violating content they removed was trump repeating the same stolen election crud he's been saying for a month and then __urging the protesters to go home peacefully, preserve law and order, etc__.
There were two more tweets that led to the definitive suspension of the account, per the NYT. This is one tweet that was taken down almost immediately around 6:00PM.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he tweeted. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
I mean, 'Remember this day forever'? Like it's the Alamo? Really?
> (...) and then __urging the protesters to go home peacefully, preserve law and order, etc__.
Considering the way Trump, during his infamous Georgia phone call, fell back to weasel words to allow him to claim plausible deniability, such stating that "in my opinion they are shredding votes" after fellow Republicans made it very clear that there was absolutely no doubt that no vote was shredded... Those statements sound like nothing more than further weasel words to allow him to weasel himself out of any responsibility for his own actions.
It's classic case of double talk. Everyone is free to interpret it as they will, he washes his hands of all this. If he really wanted to send people home, he could just have said: please go home. Or even: look, we've tried everything, we were wrong. I'm sure president Biden will take best care of this country. Please go home.
Even if he didn't think it, as what he thinks shouldn't matter unless he wants the stirrup to continue. He's supposed to be a politician, or even just a grown up person after all, not a child who cannot control himself.
Living in Hungary, living through this very same shit for 10, or maybe 14 years now, I've watched the whole Trump story in horror, but also thinking most of the time: yeah, this is kind of expected. This double talk thing is something our PM (Viktor Orban) does a lot of time. So yeah, Trump didn't want to calm these guys down, or to be more objective, that's not what he DID (even if we believe he's totally childish and dumb).
It also seems odd, that they were unable to protect the capitol. It was not a storm out of nowhere.
A bit orchestrated?
To show the less radical Trump supporters, this is what your president is responsible for, chaos and anarchy in the capitol. Disturbing the democratic process.
But I guess, don't assume evil, what can be explained with incompetence.
The NYT homepage currently describes what happened as "Mayhem Incited by Trump."
If you were to read that and go to Trump's twitter feed and read the above quoted tweet, you would now be left with two competing ideas: Was Trump inciting the mayhem or trying to quell it?
On the other hand, if you go to his Twitter feed and just see what's currently there, two blank spots replaced with, "This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules," you will think, "oh, Trump was inciting mayhem."
So deleting those tweets helps construct a narrative.
It's amazing that the reactions to this are both "should have banned him years ago for violating their rules" and "this is blatant dangerous censorship." Whichever side you're on, this is a lose-lose situation for twitter.
This was the right move by Twitter at the right time.
If they had blocked his account years, or even months ago, they would have had maintained no credibility as a platform, in the pocket of the left, etc.
If they don't take a stand now, they're all but complicit in perpetuating this [riot? attempted coup? insurrection?]
That said, people should be careful what they wish for: we don't want a couple of powerful media platforms deciding which speech is considered permissible and which isn't. They have to be very conservative in their approach or these platforms will cease to carry any authority.
Twitter banned him just after he told protestors to go home. His message of deescalation will not reach them, instead they will see he is banned and be further riled up. This is a very dangerous game twitter is playing.
The message they removed for violating their rules stated-- after repeating the stolen election blather that he's been spinning for the last month--:
"We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt. [...] We have to have peace. So go home, we love you, you're very special, you've seen what happens you've seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.
Knowing this, do you believe that it was still the right move to suspend his account over this particular video rather any of hundreds of prior cases or-- no doubt-- the hundreds of opportunities which would arise in the coming months?
It’s quite ironic that people think this is a first amendment or censorship issue when the real first amendment issue would be if Twitter were not allowed to do this.
> censorship: the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.
Why do you conflate any discussion of censorship and freedom of speech with the First Amendment of the US’s constitution?
It's obviously not a first amendment is since that restricts what the fed gov can do, but it is a free speech issue which is a philosophy thought to be better than censoring opposing ideas. It's a legal issue in regards to section 230 which only protects open platforms from liability from user content. If Twitter whats to be a publisher with editorial authority then they should be held to the same standard as NYT and CNN.
Some people here despise Facebook for privacy concerns, but it's still a useful private network for family and friends not constrained by the message/length format.
Twitter generates so much negativity, so much strife between people who constantly yell at each other over nothing that socially it is the most toxic place on the internet.
As for public officials using Twitter, a private company for their main communication channel instead of using government websites, they need to stop doing that.
> As for public officials using Twitter, a private company for their main communication channel instead of using government websites, they need to stop doing that.
That's a relevant point and I hope every public official would do this. However, what people seem to miss is that Twitter, just like other social media such as Facebook or Instagram, started to, in people's mind, transform into a public agora and lose their private status. The thing is they gained so much power and became so essential and valuable as far as society and political life are concerned that they're now considered as communication channels where everyone, including public officials, should have the right to express their opinion as long as it doesn't break the TOS, which is something I can, in fact, hardly disapprove.
> Twitter generates so much negativity, so much strife between people who constantly yell at each other over nothing that socially it is the most toxic place on the internet.
Glad I'm not the only one that feels that way about twitter. When I first used it and saw all the hate speech and negative comments I was like "who on earth would even use this platform?" It really reminded me of 4chan.
The rules are subjective so they are more like whims really.
The President put out a video asking people, in plain language, to go home and co-operate with Capitol police. In this same video he reaffirmed his contention that the election was fraudulent, and said that the protesters were loved. Whether he did this sincerely or as a ploy to increase the likelihood of being obeyed, nobody can say without mind reading powers.
One camp will say this video can be interpreted as harmful because it contains the claim that the election was fraudulent
Another camp will say you are allowed to hold the position that the election was fraudulent and at the same time condemn violence.
Twitter has chosen to interpret the video to say that there is a risk of violence despite a plain spoken appeal against violence. They are essentially interpreting the meaning of the message in a way that is contrary to the plain language used in the video.
In such a scenario I would probably not treat it as a rule, since this kind of rule can be made up spontaneously and can be used to stop anyone from saying anything really.
I think it should not be celebrated when a corporation decides to enforce arbitrary rules based on its own interpretations of someone else's plain words.
Little about this seems egalitarian. Had this been a normal persons account it would have been banned ages ago. As practically proven by accounts that mirrored his tweets and did get banned (fast).
I always thought it was obvious they were going to ban him after his time in office was up, it's hard to imagine anything else happening with how they feel about each other.
How big & immediate (powerful) leaders' reach were 200 years ago?
Were they able to send their message to 10s millions of people instantly and lead them to things? or how long would it take them to reach all those people.
I wonder if today's leaders have a very different power compared to when most of these laws and systems were put in place?
The real story, to me at least, is the rampant, completely unfounded and roundly debunked claims of election fraud making there way here in this thread in Hacker News. The ability of people to completely fabricate their own reality in order to confirm their own biases and reinforce their prejudices is absolutely astounding.
As many have said, far too little too late. It's easy to do now he's on his way out out. Still had four years of milking the cash cow beforehand.
At least we know where Twitter stands now, unless you are literally involved in an actual insurrection against your own government, you won't get banned as a US president.
Twitter is a toxic force in society on balance. I'm glad I quit.
[+] [-] m-i-l|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nullc|5 years ago|reply
Here is a copy: https://files.catbox.moe/71gfr1.mp4
For those that don't want to play a video this is an unabridged transcript:
"I know your pain. I know your hurt. We had an election that was stolen from us, it was a landslide election and everyone knows it especially the other side. But you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt. It's a very tough period of time, there has never been a time like this where such a thing happened, where they could take it away from all of us, from me, from you, from our country. This was a fraudulent election but we can't play into the hands of these people. We have to have peace. So go home, we love you, you're very special, you've seen what happens you've seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace."
I was watching a live stream from the mob and the protesters (the buffalo costume guy, in fact) were trying to get other protesters to leave on the basis of trumps message and people were believing the claim was fake because twitter restricted sharing so the only way to see it was to directly go to the page.
Seems like an odd choice.
[+] [-] claw_howitzer|5 years ago|reply
They were there in the first place because of his message
[+] [-] dan-robertson|5 years ago|reply
I feel like the “Twitter internal politics” explanation is more convincing than eg some small committee of expert moderators looking at trumps tweets and carefully deciding if they break the rules, balancing that with public interest considerations, and deciding if some restrictions should be placed on them
[+] [-] stefan_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] whymauri|5 years ago|reply
There were two more tweets that led to the definitive suspension of the account, per the NYT. This is one tweet that was taken down almost immediately around 6:00PM.
“These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long,” he tweeted. “Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!”
I mean, 'Remember this day forever'? Like it's the Alamo? Really?
[+] [-] rualca|5 years ago|reply
Considering the way Trump, during his infamous Georgia phone call, fell back to weasel words to allow him to claim plausible deniability, such stating that "in my opinion they are shredding votes" after fellow Republicans made it very clear that there was absolutely no doubt that no vote was shredded... Those statements sound like nothing more than further weasel words to allow him to weasel himself out of any responsibility for his own actions.
[+] [-] notthegov|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] ZephyrBlu|5 years ago|reply
This even seems a lot tamer and more to the point than Trump usually is.
[+] [-] atleta|5 years ago|reply
Even if he didn't think it, as what he thinks shouldn't matter unless he wants the stirrup to continue. He's supposed to be a politician, or even just a grown up person after all, not a child who cannot control himself.
Living in Hungary, living through this very same shit for 10, or maybe 14 years now, I've watched the whole Trump story in horror, but also thinking most of the time: yeah, this is kind of expected. This double talk thing is something our PM (Viktor Orban) does a lot of time. So yeah, Trump didn't want to calm these guys down, or to be more objective, that's not what he DID (even if we believe he's totally childish and dumb).
[+] [-] bzb6|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hutzlibu|5 years ago|reply
A bit orchestrated? To show the less radical Trump supporters, this is what your president is responsible for, chaos and anarchy in the capitol. Disturbing the democratic process.
But I guess, don't assume evil, what can be explained with incompetence.
[+] [-] dilap|5 years ago|reply
If you were to read that and go to Trump's twitter feed and read the above quoted tweet, you would now be left with two competing ideas: Was Trump inciting the mayhem or trying to quell it?
On the other hand, if you go to his Twitter feed and just see what's currently there, two blank spots replaced with, "This Tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules," you will think, "oh, Trump was inciting mayhem."
So deleting those tweets helps construct a narrative.
[+] [-] 6gvONxR4sf7o|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philip1209|5 years ago|reply
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1346970432017031178
[+] [-] colmvp|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ketamine__|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mehrdadn|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newguy1234|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bmmayer1|5 years ago|reply
If they had blocked his account years, or even months ago, they would have had maintained no credibility as a platform, in the pocket of the left, etc.
If they don't take a stand now, they're all but complicit in perpetuating this [riot? attempted coup? insurrection?]
That said, people should be careful what they wish for: we don't want a couple of powerful media platforms deciding which speech is considered permissible and which isn't. They have to be very conservative in their approach or these platforms will cease to carry any authority.
[+] [-] TearsInTheRain|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] im3w1l|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nullc|5 years ago|reply
The message they removed for violating their rules stated-- after repeating the stolen election blather that he's been spinning for the last month--:
"We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt. [...] We have to have peace. So go home, we love you, you're very special, you've seen what happens you've seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.
Here is a copy of the full video: https://files.catbox.moe/71gfr1.mp4
Knowing this, do you believe that it was still the right move to suspend his account over this particular video rather any of hundreds of prior cases or-- no doubt-- the hundreds of opportunities which would arise in the coming months?
[+] [-] Balgair|5 years ago|reply
Putsch
"A secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government"
Though this wasn't so secretly plotted.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/putsch
[+] [-] chadash|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chordalkeyboard|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alentist|5 years ago|reply
Why do you conflate any discussion of censorship and freedom of speech with the First Amendment of the US’s constitution?
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] throwaway829|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throw_m239339|5 years ago|reply
Some people here despise Facebook for privacy concerns, but it's still a useful private network for family and friends not constrained by the message/length format.
Twitter generates so much negativity, so much strife between people who constantly yell at each other over nothing that socially it is the most toxic place on the internet.
As for public officials using Twitter, a private company for their main communication channel instead of using government websites, they need to stop doing that.
[+] [-] spidersouris|5 years ago|reply
That's a relevant point and I hope every public official would do this. However, what people seem to miss is that Twitter, just like other social media such as Facebook or Instagram, started to, in people's mind, transform into a public agora and lose their private status. The thing is they gained so much power and became so essential and valuable as far as society and political life are concerned that they're now considered as communication channels where everyone, including public officials, should have the right to express their opinion as long as it doesn't break the TOS, which is something I can, in fact, hardly disapprove.
[+] [-] nullc|5 years ago|reply
Beef. It's what's for twitter.
[+] [-] newguy1234|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esja|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] majormajor|5 years ago|reply
If this was the country our textbooks say it is, this would be celebrated as an example of how egalitarian the country is.
There are a lot of countries where this wouldn't be possible, and Americans should be glad we aren't at that point (yet, at least).
[+] [-] throwawaybchr|5 years ago|reply
The President put out a video asking people, in plain language, to go home and co-operate with Capitol police. In this same video he reaffirmed his contention that the election was fraudulent, and said that the protesters were loved. Whether he did this sincerely or as a ploy to increase the likelihood of being obeyed, nobody can say without mind reading powers.
One camp will say this video can be interpreted as harmful because it contains the claim that the election was fraudulent
Another camp will say you are allowed to hold the position that the election was fraudulent and at the same time condemn violence.
Twitter has chosen to interpret the video to say that there is a risk of violence despite a plain spoken appeal against violence. They are essentially interpreting the meaning of the message in a way that is contrary to the plain language used in the video.
In such a scenario I would probably not treat it as a rule, since this kind of rule can be made up spontaneously and can be used to stop anyone from saying anything really.
I think it should not be celebrated when a corporation decides to enforce arbitrary rules based on its own interpretations of someone else's plain words.
[+] [-] Havoc|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ve55|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] obilgic|5 years ago|reply
Were they able to send their message to 10s millions of people instantly and lead them to things? or how long would it take them to reach all those people.
I wonder if today's leaders have a very different power compared to when most of these laws and systems were put in place?
[+] [-] oblio|5 years ago|reply
So just based off of their rules, he should have been banned for good a long time ago.
[+] [-] read_if_gay_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] disease|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] inerte|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tsegratis|5 years ago|reply
We get divisive arguments with no solution
Is that what we're seeing here? -- The fallout of society, media and leaders included, not valuing truth above personal gain
[+] [-] obilgic|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swarnie_|5 years ago|reply
Historically America have incited and armed mobs to overthrow democratically elected governments in South America.
Why is it unacceptable this time around?
[+] [-] acconrad|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmfldn|5 years ago|reply
At least we know where Twitter stands now, unless you are literally involved in an actual insurrection against your own government, you won't get banned as a US president.
Twitter is a toxic force in society on balance. I'm glad I quit.
[+] [-] mjgs|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Redoubts|5 years ago|reply