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Twitter Refuses To Delete Trump's Baseless Claims About Joe Scarborough (cnbc.com) 335

Twitter's policy carve-out for world leaders is facing another test with President Donald Trump's latest tweets resurrecting baseless claims that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough should be investigated for the death of his former staffer. From a report: Earlier this month, Trump tweeted questions about when an investigation would be opened into the "Cold Case" of "Psycho Joe Scarborough." The unfounded accusation refers to the death in 2001 of Lori Klausutis, who was working for Scarborough when he was a Republican congressman for Florida. At the time, the medical examiner concluded Klausutis, 28, had fainted due to an undiagnosed heart condition and hit her head on the way down, finding no evidence of foul play. Scarborough was in Washington, D.C., when Klausutis died in his district office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Trump's tweets revived a baseless theory that Scarborough was allegedly involved in Klausutis' death. On Thursday, her widower, Timothy Klausutis, wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey requesting the company delete Trump's tweets referencing those claims. "I'm asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him -- the memory of my dead wife -- and perverted it for perceived political gain," Klausutis wrote in the letter, which was dated May 21 and published by The New York Times on Tuesday. A spokesperson for Twitter indicated that they would be updating their policies, but Trump's tweets were not removed. "We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family," the spokesperson said. "We've been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly."
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Twitter Refuses To Delete Trump's Baseless Claims About Joe Scarborough

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  • by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:26AM (#60106016)

    If they did, Trump would just be provided an app that would go to a web page, and then 1,000+ Twitter users and 1+million bots would post it all to Twitter.

    Information wanting to be 'free' doesn't have to mean good information, or rational information.

    The moment he isn't president though, he'll basically be Sarah Palin - defended in spirit, but shoved to his own memory hole in indirect shame. Such is the way of modern Republicans. Pride in greed is fleeting.

    Ryan Fenton

  • Um (Score:4, Insightful)

    by jwymanm ( 627857 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:32AM (#60106082) Homepage
    Don't we not delete comments here also? When did we start supporting massive censorship here? Go fuck all of yourselves that support censorship on the Internet. You deserve what you end up with. Sad thing is you're going to take the rest of us down with you.
    • Actually some comments do get deleted here. Often when it is really bad. Also to note the people posting on Slashdot are not speaking in a position of power.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Slashdot does delete comments and does censor certain words.

      Slashdot is a business, subject to US law. Even 8chan deleted stuff and still couldn't survive. Any site claiming never to remove anything user submitted is lying.

      • In the old days it was the case that Slashdot would delete things when required by US law to do so. Other than that, hopefully it continues to have better cyber hygiene than the petulant screaming toddler the OP appears to be. (Too harsh? Well, censorship is bad, mmkay?)
  • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • He's asking for an investigation

      Because Trump's lying. Mostly by blindly following the conspiracy theorists who've been pushing this since 2001.

      The conspiracy theory is that the aide was meeting Scarborough over them having an affair-produced pregnancy, and Scarborough killed her. Then he "suddenly resigned" from Congress to help the cover-up.

      Problem is she died in FL while he was in DC. How's she setting up an in-person meeting when he's in a different city?
      Another problem is he suddenly resigned in May, and she died in July. So appa

  • If Twitter deleted baseless claims what would be left?

    If it's baseless why wouldn't you rather it stay up and laugh at him over it?

    I have no idea as political infighting utterly bores me.

  • They didn't refuse to delete the tweets, they just failed to commit to doing anything other than make vague policy changes. That's not the same as a refusal.

  • by hxnwix ( 652290 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @11:36AM (#60106134) Journal

    The basis would be the dead body found in Joe's office. That's the basis.

    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      There actually were a lot of suspicious circumstances surrounding the death, but because Bush was still the Hero of the Day for invading a country that had nothing to do with 9-11 pretty much all Republicans were considered above reproach.

      • by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @01:50PM (#60107040)

        Only when you don't look too closely. For example, the conspiracy theory is that she was going to confront Scarborough over an affair-caused pregnancy.

        Problem is she was in FL and he was in DC. Little hard to set up an in-person meeting when he's not there.

        Another thing from the conspiracy theory is Scarborough suddenly resigned to help cover it up. Except he suddenly resigned two months before she died.

        But it certainly sounds suspicious when you leave those details out.

        • by cusco ( 717999 )

          Gossip columnists in DC had been atwitter for months before he announced his resignation that Scarborough's wife was threatening divorce because of his infidelity. He didn't actually step down until that fall, I believe he waited until his replacement had been selected. She was actually found by a couple (German, I think) with immigration problems who walked into the unlocked office because they had an early morning meeting with him, which would have been difficult to accomplish from DC since video confer

          • He didn't actually step down until that fall

            Which isn't relevant. The accusation is he resigned because of the murder. When he actually left office doesn't matter. Only when he resigned.

            which would have been difficult to accomplish from DC since video conferencing was not really a common thing yet.

            Because he was going to be in FL that day. He had not yet left DC when the supposed meeting happened.https://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=16452556&cid=60107040#

    • The dead body in Joe's office in Florida. While Joe himself was in DC.

      I didn't realize Scarborough's arms were that long.

      • You know, you're right. If he claims to have been in D.C. and/or has a solid alibi of being in D.C. then it's utterly impossible that he had anything to do with murdering her. /s
    • Regardless of whether or not there is a claim to be made here, please remember the following:

      You're defending the President of the United States slandering a news host he doesn't like about something that happened 30+ years ago instead of dealing with a pandemic that has killed more Americans than most wars we've ever been in within only 3-4 months, while the economy crashes worse than in the 1930s.

      If I don't think about what Scarborough might have done 30 years ago while on the shitter in the morning, then

  • Seems to me like Twitter has done the right thing here, and unfortunately might be pivoting to do the wrong thing moving forward?

    Personal tweets should be attributed to whoever typed them, period. Twitter is just a service provider, enabling the ability for people to express themselves freely in writing. If a statement made is truly illegal, then it should be pointed out to investigators to use it as evidence. But otherwise? Who cares? Anyone can tweet a response of their own to counter false accusation

    • And in either case, for politicians, it's good to let their stuff be out there for everyone to see, rather than be accused of political bias. That a number of people want to shut Trump up suggests this is the wrong motivation.

  • At what point is a post removed? I am just wondering that if the same post was made by the following, which would have their post removed:

    - General public
    - Celebrity
    - Civil servant
    - Senator
    - President of the USA
    - Leader of any other nation

    Actually it could be an interesting experiment to tweet exactly the same things being said by Mr Trump and see for which reasons the post is removed? So I would imagine a bot that cop

  • The Church Lady doesn't approve [nytimes.com] of that tweet.

  • Then Twitter won't have a problem not removing messages about the con artist having a child out of wedlock with one of his staff at his failed tower in New York.

  • by superwiz ( 655733 ) on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @01:26PM (#60106860) Journal
    This claim is part of the summary (rather than part of the quote). And since Msmash is one of the editors, it's on Slashdot -- not on the article being summarized. Given the the PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (who by the virtue of being the head of the classification authority has access to the the best intelligence the US has to offer) is the one who made this claim, this is an inherently false statement. It's an *unproven* claim, but calling for an investigation doesn't make the claim true. It only calls to find out whether it is true or not.
  • ...and they well know it - but still will stop at nothing to keep the guy around to drive traffic. So came that new bullshit rule just for "world leaders", just so they can pretend this decision is legitimate.

    Trump should've had his Twitter account nuked a looong time ago. Question is: why wasn't Don Jr's?

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