Trump Threatens To Shut Social Media Companies After Twitter Fact Check (bloomberg.com) 682
President Donald Trump threatened to regulate or shutter social media companies -- a warning apparently aimed at Twitter after it began fact-checking his tweets. From a report: In a pair of tweets issued Wednesday morning from his iPhone, Trump said that social media sites are trying to silence conservative voices, and need to change course or face action. There is no evidence that Trump has the ability to shut down social media networks, which are run by publicly traded companies and used by billions of people all over the world.
Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," he said Wednesday. In a second tweet, he added: "Just like we can't let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country." He didn't cite any platforms by name, but it was plainly a response after Twitter added a fact-check label to earlier Trump tweets that made unsubstantiated claims about mail-in voting. It's the first time Twitter has taken action on Trump's posts for being misleading.
Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen," he said Wednesday. In a second tweet, he added: "Just like we can't let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country." He didn't cite any platforms by name, but it was plainly a response after Twitter added a fact-check label to earlier Trump tweets that made unsubstantiated claims about mail-in voting. It's the first time Twitter has taken action on Trump's posts for being misleading.
Do it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
You *are* aware that Slashdot is one of the social media aren't you?
Re:Do it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Heh... we're more like "Antisocial Media" for Linux users and other miscreants. I doubt that anyone outside the Trump organization outside of their IT department has even heard of us.
More like asocial media (Score:3)
Re:More like asocial media (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry, Windows breaks itself.
Re: (Score:3)
Reading the comments was worth it for this one line.. :)
I wish I had some mod points left..
Re: More like asocial media (Score:4, Funny)
Linux and audio drivers, man ...
Re: (Score:3)
"man alsactl" should help you :-)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not sure. I mean, I've personally found one person with patience can do a lot to silence other accounts. On one hand, Slashdot is nowhere near as important as it used to be. On the other hand, the mod system is so broken and admins so out to lunch that it takes very little effort to throw wrenches in the gears. I could see Slashdot still being a target, but nowhere close to the effort taken on FaceTweet.
Re:Do it! (Score:5, Informative)
You *are* aware that Slashdot is one of the social media aren't you?
Don't be ridiculous, Slashdot doesn't do any fact checking!
Re: (Score:3)
Slashdot is a social news site, not a social media site like Facebook or Twitter. Different things.
Re:Do it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot is a social news site, not a social media site like Facebook or Twitter. Different things.
False. Completely false. This is not a news site. There are no journalists. The content is provided by users, and is intended to be consumed by the other users.
This is pure social media. Facebook and twitter also have journalists using the platform to publish real news, so they're closer to what you claim slashdot to be than slashdot is!
Re: (Score:3)
False. Completely false. This is not a news site. There are no journalists. The content is provided by users, and is intended to be consumed by the other users.
It's not a news generator, but it is news. It's crowd-sourced news, a news aggregator.
Re: (Score:3)
Eh, Slashdot is like a bad habit, then actually a useful part of my life.
However if Social Media gets shutdown, you have to relay on the "LiBeRaL Media" for all the news sources out there. Fox News can't do it alone.
Re:Do it! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, please, please, please shut them all down! Please! I'll campaign door-to-door for Trump if he'll actually do it!
Not going to happen. A narcissistic may get angry with what the mirror shows him, but he will never, ever get rid of that mirror.
Freedom to lie, amiright? (Score:5, Insightful)
He's upset that his posts are now challenged by fact checking links. This doesn't silence anybody, it just makes his lies harder to spread.
How do you know you are on the side of the baddies? The skulls in the insignia are one sign, but so is an incessant need to lie about everything. When fact-checking is your enemy, your followers should RUN AWAY. Sadly, the world will always have its share of useful idiots, no matter what the ideology, willing to support the lies in the face of facts, logic, and common sense. All you can do is combat them with the truth and force them back into the shadows.
Re:Freedom to lie, amiright? (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it amazing how one way "fact checkers" are.
that's how it is with facts.
i should find it amazing that you find it amazing ... but then it's a fact that a sizable portion of the population can't differentiate facts from opinions. which is the fucking problem to begin with.
Re: (Score:3)
Wait, aside from other comments below - if there are 1,110 *convictions* - you think there were only 1,110 *occurrences* ?
Let's make a covid detected versus undetected spread comparison, since I'm pretty sure we're using that instead of car analogies.
And sorry, who is going to be disenfranchised? The ones that need ID's or something?
Re: Freedom to lie, amiright? (Score:5, Informative)
You won't get convictions for a crime when no one is looking for it
The presence of convictions at all indicate someone is looking for it. If no one was actually investigating claims of fraud, there'd be zero convictions.
But again, you have been convinced you are set upon from all sides so that you'll be excited to vote for people who oppose everything you claim to believe.
Heck, they've even managed to convince you that election fraud is voter fraud. You should look more closely at Heritage's list.
and one of the major political parties fights all efforts to investigate it tooth n nail.
Citation Required.
One of the parties is fighting against things like voter ID laws, because they disenfranchise 0.5-2% of voters (depends on the allowed IDs, the location, and a host of other factors). Voter ID is also only effective against in-person voter fraud, which is the most rare kind of voter fraud. So a tiny fraction of that 0.0001827%
That party has also noticed frequently there are oddities like state-issued hunting permits are allowed as voter ID, but state-issued university IDs are not. That kinda gives away the partisan goal of those laws.
Re: Freedom to lie, amiright? (Score:5, Insightful)
That party has also noticed frequently there are oddities like state-issued hunting permits are allowed as voter ID, but state-issued university IDs are not
I'm going to devil's advocate here for a moment without knowing what I'm talking about and rejoin that I would HOPE that the vetting and checks for a permit that comes with a firearms check would be more rigorous than a permit letting you go to school.
He'd never do it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Without antisocial media to spread his lies and bullshit he'd only have Fox "news" and OANN, and a few AM radio morons to do the job.
#f**kTrump
Re:He'd never do it... (Score:5, Insightful)
He can just switch services (Score:3, Funny)
I'm sure gab will welcome him and his faithful followers with open arms, no questions asked
Re:He can just switch services (Score:5, Interesting)
That would be a huge boost for non-censoring networks like Gab. BTW, everyone is welcome there, liberal and extreme-left opinions are not censored there.
Completely uncensored platforms get quickly overtaken by right wing trolls, and Gab, a platform started by and for right wing trolls, is no exception.
The problem with that concept is the purpose of trolling is to troll people, and none of the people they want to troll are on Gab, so Gab is always going to be this tiny cesspool of anti-semites, racists, and other right wing extremists that never really catches on.
And Trump has absolutely zero interest into entering the minor leagues of social networks.
Trump Threatens To Shut Social Media Companies ... (Score:5, Funny)
Trump Threatens To Shut Social Media Companies After Twitter Fact Check
Finally a good idea from that brainless windbag. Go right ahead, you can start with Facebook.
Re: (Score:3)
The irony of threatening to shut down (i.e. actually censor) social media because they're "censoring" (i.e. adding a fact check link to) his posts appears to have been lost on him.
Anagram fun! (Score:3, Funny)
Control of news media (Score:5, Interesting)
As they say ... (Score:3)
As they say: "Shitler gonna shit."
We don't need no stinking facts! (Score:5, Insightful)
If facts suddenly had to enter politics, how should a populist stay relevant?
Shutter "conservative" or "Republican" voices? (Score:5, Interesting)
Trump said that social media sites are trying to silence conservative voices
He meant "Republican" voices. Conservative voices have been drowned out by Republican voices ever since George W. Bush (#2) changed the Republican party to a warmongering, fearmongering, anti-immigrant party. For those not familiar: prior to George W. Bush the Republicans were against border walls, against military action in foreign countries, in favor of open trade, and stood up for the plight of undocumented immigrants.
Re:Shutter "conservative" or "Republican" voices? (Score:5, Informative)
against military action in foreign countries
Uh.....HW Bush had his exciting Kuwaiti adventure. And Grenada might remember something involving Reagan. Then we get back to Nixon, used Vietnam as an excuse to take "military action" in neighboring countries.
So if you want to claim Conservative voices have been drowned out since Eisenhower, you might have a claim.
However, one could point out that if y'all have been voting against Conservative voices for the last 70ish years, the problem isn't the Republican party.
Re: (Score:3)
We need to stop letting the Republican party use the word "Conservative" for actions that are diametrically opposed to that philosophy.
No. Republicans claim the Conservative mantle because Conservatives keep voting for them.
Republicans keep doing it because it works. If you want to change it, you have to stop making it work.
History holds that expelling an invading force from an allied nation is a very appropriate used of military force, and I think that aligns pretty well with conservative philosophy. It was well supported in Europe and the Arab world.
Problem is we told Iraq to "go ahead, we don't care". Then we suddenly cared after the invasion.
Can you clarify? I'm not sure what you mean here, or who "y'all" is. The number of years this has been going on isn't relevant.
Conservatives overwhelmingly vote for Republicans.
If you want the Republican party to stop being the "Conservative" party, you have to stop voting for them. Until you Conservatives do so, you will be saying "We're good wi
Twitter should reciprocate (Score:3)
Re:Twitter should reciprocate (Score:5, Insightful)
If Twitter decided to follow its very own TOS, Trump should've been banned years ago.
They just don't want to lose the traffic.
The US Constitution is the Enemy of the People (Score:4, Insightful)
... at least, according to Trump.
To Hell with that damned First Amendment thingie. Shut down social media if Trump doesn't like it!!!!!!
article 48 (Score:3)
Careful America, we're walking down a dangerous road to Fascism.
https://www.history.com/topics... [history.com]
a very important moment in history (Score:5, Insightful)
While many Slashdot users might not see it, I feel deeply that we are
near a historical moment or in an important moment in history.
Someone stood up to Trump and exercised their rights, and the risk is
that these rights might be taken away. What a great time to live.
Change for many people are happening, positive or negative is still
unknown.
"I do solemnly swear.." (Score:3)
Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
The Republican motto: capitalism all the way. Government shouldn't tell corporations what to do.
Corporation X does something the republicans don't like.
The government should tell corporation X how to operate.
That level of hypocrisy takes balls. And somehow they see no problem with it. Their blinders are strong.
regulate polititians (Score:3)
An honest man... (Score:3)
Trump (Score:3)
What a fucking idiot.
Many sources (Score:5, Informative)
There are many other sources out there. Is Fox better? https://www.foxnews.com/politi... [foxnews.com]
Or: https://www.newsweek.com/donal... [newsweek.com]
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
https://news.google.com/articl... [google.com]
Vote by mail [Re: Many sources] (Score:5, Informative)
The NY Times called mail-in voting fraud to be a catastrophically bad idea due to fraud. What changed?
Oh, I'd definitely agree that there should be a long hard look at mail-in voting, with a very critical analysis of the potential for fraud. But that's not what this particular news is; the news we're discussing here is the president saying that he wants to "strongly regulate or close down" social media because one of them put a link to a fact checking after one of his tweets (out of the 30,000 tweets he's done).
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/1... [nytimes.com]
That's a good article, even if it is eight years old, but it does not call voting by mail "a catastrophically bad idea"; it did say "Fraud Easier Via Mail" but also "There are, of course, significant advantages to voting by mail" and "But it is certainly possible to improve the process and reduce the error rate."
By the way, google tells me that there are 2630 results for "voting by mail" on nytimes.com. I'm curious why you picked that particular 8-year-old editorial out of the thousands to label as the opinion of the New York Times.
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not even going to waste the click.
I'm curious. What FACTS in the linked article were incorrect? Please be specific.
Thanks.
heritage.org? Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not even going to waste the click. ... jokes aside, The scale of a problem matters, and if that is intentionally misrepresent that is what we in the industry refer to as a lie. What if instead of 1285 cases of proven voter fraud, there are 44 out of a billion? [washingtonpost.com].
Then there are details that can be debated on what to count and what not to count. That's a very real problem and worth consideration. If we count felons who live in states where their right to vote is taken away even after they have served their time, then the numbers become dramatically different. They are American citizens, not foreign nationals, who have for whatever idiotic reason committed crimes then furthered that idiocy by not realizing how much more trouble they can get into if they don't verify that they can vote before doing it.
In states where ex-cons don't lose their right to vote, the amount of fraud in this category is zero. And the over all amount of fraud is nearly insignificant.
Should we stay vigilant against voter fraud? Yes.
Should we let politicians manipulate us into thinking it's more serious than the other problems that plague our key institutions? No.
Should we fall into some xenophobic assumptions every time we talk about voter fraud? Please no. It's grown tiresome.
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
A real thing, yes. A material thing, not really. This gets investigated a *lot*. And when your argument is 1,285 "proven" cases (of which 175 were apparently not "proven" enough to allow for convictions), out of millions of votes... That's actually a non-issue. That is significantly smaller than the number of cases of votes being suppressed by alleged "anti-fraud" measures which are somehow mysteriously designed (or simply applied) selectively to favor the political party of the people pushing for them.
So,
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the President is publishing outright mistruths in an attempt to decieve (he is - vote by mail has been a thing in Oregon and Washington for years with absolutely no detectable rise in voter fraud - if you make a claim, show your work please and cite some legitimate studies), and he is using someone else's private property to do so, that property owner is well within their rights to exercise editorial license on their property.
Don't like it? Start up your own Twitter for conservative views. You know, like conservative talk radio exists, and conservative print media exists, and conservative news aggregation sites exist. You can call it "Llama", and people can "bleat" all the fake news rot they want.
What you can't do, is use governmental authority to silence inconvenient privately owned media. Which, by the way, is exactly what authoritarian governments always do first when seizing power. And even if the 1st Amendment didn't exist, you really wouldn't want to do that anyway, because the same justifications could be used to silence your tribe's friendly media - the Rush Limbaugh set can just as easily be shut down by the next liberal President who doesn't like whatever they are on about.
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
Stupid question. As if any human being would have an exact percentage of tolerance for something like this.
I mean, no one likes to eat bug shit but we eat it ever day in our food. What percent bug shit does your food need to be before you don't eat it?
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you even listen to yourself? "It's not my small group that is the echo chamber, it is the rest of the world." T_D was literally the definition of an echo chamber, its mods censored any comment they disagreed with. The president's tweets are not being censored, Twitter is using its own right to free speech to comment on them. That's the opposite of censorship.
You cultists are ridiculous and the majority of Americans are right to mock you. Get used to being the butt of jokes for the next few decades. In my mind, you are all traitors hell bent on destroying democracy, free speech, all the freedoms America stands for.
Re: Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:3, Insightful)
And hasn't happened here.
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
The President isn't a "group", and social media companies are protected by the First Amendment. A President threatening what he doesn't even have the power to do is at least sheer idiocy, and carrying through on the threat is a clear violation of the Constitution, and an abuse of power. Donald Trump is not Benito Mussolini, despite some apparent ideological and personality similarities.
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:4, Insightful)
I kind of take it back now. Mussolini was a lot of things, but a complete fool he was not. His biggest mistake was joining the Nazis. If he had been as smart as Franco, he would have sat WWII out. But other than that, Mussolini in his prime was ruthlessly effective.
Trump is stunningly ineffective. If you look very hard, you'll see that even a Republican-dominated Congress has in general not really facilitated very much. The tax cuts, and protecting him from removal (though they did it to save their own skins). I'll wager there are plenty of Republicans secretly hoping he does lose in November. They'll still have the problem of his supporters, and even in retirement, he'll doubtless still be a dominant figure in the party, but at least he won't have his fingers on any of the real or proverbial red buttons anymore. Biden's enough of an establishment man that at least he'll be predictable.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because businesses are government regulated and they are not above the law. Censoring content only from specific groups is clearly discrimination, which is illegal.
I don't have a twitter account so I only see tweets that are republished elsewhere so maybe my facts are wrong. If so I'm sure I'll be corrected.
Are Trumps tweets being censored or are they having an added commentary questioning accuracy? If they are not being edited but clearly separate commentary added then there is no censorship. Also Trump is an individual not a group and is not being discriminated against for his race, gender, sexual orientation or religion but if he is being discriminated against
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:4, Interesting)
However, during this pandemic, Trumps surreal grasps of reality is getting people killed. He and his cronies have been steadfast in their flouting of existing laws. With the GOP refusing to follow through on the impeachment, it sent a message that Trump and his coterie can actively work to cripple or destroy the basic foundations of a healthy democracy and not suffer any repercussions at all. Adding separate commentary that sticks to just verifiable facts is their right under Free Speech and I would argue it is also their duty to do so if they see themselves as a news service. Problem is, Trump lashes out at any person or organization that doesn't fawn at his feet and dares to ask for actual facts, actual data. Sadly, because Trumps core support is still solid, the GOP is willing to play lickspittle to him to avoid the wrath of the deep pocketed evangelists and red hats.
So I have no doubt that the Republicans will certainly TRY to pass all kinds of restrictive measures to punish independent media outlets. In time, bad laws that stifle free speech can be overcome by appealing to the courts. But that is a long and expensive process and there is no way to offset the chilling effect such anti-free speech laws will create while they last.
From the very beginning, Trump has been very candid about his admiration for authoritarian regimes. All the regimes he loves (Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Venezuela) have been quite blatant in their suppression of independent press. The man loves dictators and it seems pretty clear that he wants to be a dictator as well. I've read elsewhere the line "red hats are the new brown shirts" and I think it is true.
Where do I start? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How is fact-checking inherently non-objective? Trump is a serial abuser of Twitter's terms of service, and they've been very reluctant to rein him it. Admittedly, that's likely to be because his rants are a moneymaker for them. But 'caving to pressure' to fact check someone whose posts instantly become national news is anything but non-objective. In fact, their fact-checkers are likely to be fact-checkdd if they get it wrong...
Trump WILL be reelected! Congrats, Mr. President! (Score:3, Informative)
VP. `8D
.
j88.. . `88. d8' j88.. . `88. d8'
888888D. `Y88P'. 888888D. `Y88P'
Re: Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Insightful)
The âoeFactâ checkers provide links and references to their sources so that individuals can review those materials for themselves and evaluate accordingly.
Now, whether one chooses to follow those links, read or view the linked material, and make an informed, rational decision when presented with information counter to their belief system is up to them.
Trump, like all public officials, need to held to a higher standard when the make public statements. This applies equally to Republicans and Democrats alike. Facts, are facts. Opinion does not classify as fact or truth no matter what Trump and FOX try to assert.
Conservatives are not being âoecensoredâoe as Trump alludes. Instead, their fact challenged and misleading comments are marked as possibly misleading. Their posts are still visible in their entirety. Only divisive or harmful statements are removed. Only those who fail to understand this are the true victims of TDS.
TDS is falsely applied to democrats and liberals. Believe in a false narrative, such as what Trump and his cronies spew, is the true âoederangementâ syndrome....much like how Apple fanboys are said to be caught in the Apple Reality Distortion Field.
Re: Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wow, one or two per year! Individuals at that! That entire list would barely sway a dog catcher election in a small town if they all happened at the same time.
Change the filters to convictions and either fraudulent use of absentee ballots or altering the vote count (you know, the ones that really can make a difference in an election) and you get some interesting results.
Man, you Republicans really, really like to fraud out absentee ballots don't you? Yeah a handful of Dem fraud and a whole boatload of Republican fraud......fascinating, those who complain the most commit the most...no wonder Trump was attracted to the Republican party.
This information provided by The Heritage Foundation, who makes you look up each count of voter fraud manually because they won't provide the party affiliation as a filter because it would make them look really bad!
Re: (Score:3)
Doesn't matter what you think, that corporation has a right to free speech. They could fact check "the sky is blue" and call it false and there is nothing you or the government could do to stop them. Because they have a right to free speech.
Fox News literally fought a court battle for its right to lie to the public, and won. Free speech includes the right to lie.
But in this case, of course, Twitter is correct, the president is once again lying.
Re: (Score:3)
"And who fact checks the fact checkers? "
The fact-fact-checkers, who are controlled by the fact-fact-fact-checkers, who ....
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The ones who read them. If you have doubts on what a source says, it is your responsibility to be skeptical and research alternate viewpoints, acquire and analyze the data yourself, or produce your own data.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:4, Informative)
18 U.S. Code 243
18 U.S. Code 245
18 U.S. Code 246
18 U.S. Code 249
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
As someone who frequents "wrongthink" subs those accusations are laughable. These subs have to have so many extra rules that other subs don't have to follow. They aren't allowed to link to public information on the internet, e.g. Instagram. They're not allowed to link to other places on Reddit. Some even have to go so far as to prohibit the mere naming of other subreddits.
You wanna know what got T_D mods removed in the end? None of the above. They didn't ban users for a joke that wasn't politically correct.
Re: Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Funny)
But Ivanka was was over 18 when Trump said he'd date her.
Re: (Score:3)
are as stupid as the guy who can construct his own sentences?
Dude, if you can't tell by his speaking patterns and "sentence construction" that the motherfucker has the IQ of a middle school dropout, you're as fucking stupid as he is.
I don't care what your political slant is. Really, I don't. I'm so fucking disinterested in the political side of things. But if you're so deep in his cult of personality to not be able to see that he speaks like a fucking moron, you're a lost cause.
Re:Bloomberg.com? Seriously? (Score:5, Informative)
Both conservatives and liberals have their own echo chambers.
Nice false equivalency. The fact is that if you want to find crazy people, just look to the Right. It's a steady supply fueled by right-wing media. For example...all these have run on FOX and other right-wing media:
Pizzagate
Deep State
Crisis actors
False flags
Sandy Hook was a hoax
Coronavirus is a hoax
Asbestos poisoning is a mob-led conspiracy
Millions of illegals voting
'Fake News-- Fake Bombs'
FEMA camps
The Uranium One deal
Obama is a Kenyan Muslim
Death panels
Muslim zones
The secret merger of Canada, Mexico and the US
Common Core turning kids into homosexual globalist commies
McCarthy's commies
Murder of Seth Rich, Vince Foster
Trump Tower wiretaps
FISA memo
Agenda 21
Islamic training camps in America and Sharia Law in US courts
Climate Change is a global conspiracy of liberal scientists to get our tax money (or a Chinese hoax)
"They're comin' to git our guns!"
The New World Order
Ted Cruz's father helped assassinate JFK
Joe Scarborough murdered his intern
The FBI, DOJ, CIA and every news organization in the world (except Fox) is conspiring against Trump, OBAMAGATE!!! (even though no one knows what that is)
And that's just a sampling.
Re: (Score:3)
I've seen people on the left post fake items such as images of tweets Trump never made. You know what happens? There's an initial outrage followed by people who fact check and say "hey, this isn't real". Then, that discussion dies off to be replaced by something that actually happened.
I even did this myself. I posted an image I found of two petri dishes. It was labeled as "i coughed in one with no mask and one with a mask." Much more bacteria were in the "no mask" one than the mask one. I understand the dif
Re: Fact checking? (Score:5, Informative)
Well that is what they literally did do, add a link for clarifications, hence the story.
How do you react to the threat to shut them down?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Out of the history of the US and the millions of elections and votes cast 1,285 is not "quite common", it is actually quite rare, especially when they do not separate in person poll fraud from mail in fraud.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if they have contingency plans for this kind of thing. Rapidly move the core business out of the US, that kind of thing.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If he does anything of the sort, then I would recommend they up sticks rapidly to another, free-er, country, leaving the US operations running to provide a native service to Americans, but with no risk of service to everyone else. Luckily, any attempt like this would be rapidly cut down, at least the first couple of times before they found a way to enact it successfully.
They are doing nothing wrong, indeed by not doing anything to date they have been complicit in helping him spread his rhetoric.
A fact check link is not censorship. It's the most minimal application of checks and balances.
Indeed, I would suggest that any communication of the President should, by law, be fact checked before it is published.
Re: (Score:3)
So let me see if I understand?
You're in favor of Twitter blocking what Trump says, but NOT in favor of Trump blocking Twitter?
Is it cognitive dissonance or do you just revel in being a hypocrite?
BTW when did Trump advocate people injecting disinfectant, specifically? See, because the quote I read was that he said (rather stupidly, to me) that might be worth investigating...not that PEOPLE SHOULD TRY IT.
Hm. It's almost like you're proving how people spin things to their political biases and then spread fak
Re: (Score:3)
Twitter is a private company. They can choose what they publish.
Trump is the Government, and therefore bound by the First Amendment.
Deal with it.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump has never had anything blocked on Twitter, past or present. Not once.
The post you are replying to didn't mention Twitter blocking Trump or Trump blocking Twitter either.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
You're a Trump supporter. You may not want it to be obvious, but to the rest of us, it already is.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Informative)
You've GOT to be kidding me.
You cannot board a fucking airplane without proper ID.
YOu cannot enter a federal building (and many state ones these days) without proper picture ID.
Hell, with the virus reopenings, if you want to dine in at a restaurant, or go into some other public venue , for "contact tracing" they are now requiring you verify yourself with proper govt issued IDs.
These are just a FEW of the things in normal life that now require ID.....and yet you and other people claim that to require it to show you are a US Citizen in order to vote and have it noted so that another person can't commit fraud....think people cannot be bothered to get a proper ID?
I mean hell in the states that do require it...they will give you a picture ID for fucking FREE.
I mean seriously...a slight bit of effort here for something as important as voting isn't asking too much.
You need ID for doing every day things that are MUCH less serious, and yet can't be put out to get one to do one of the most important acts you can as a US citizen.
What's next...it is too much to ask to register to vote? Is it too much to bother showing up to the polls on time to vote? (Ok we may have to work with this one due to covid, but I'm talking normal times)??
Please....I don't see a problem to make a US citizen show just the slightest bit of effort to get a FREE id to verify who you are, that you are a US citizen and when voting...verfied you did in fact vote and be counted once.
And you think the Democrats aren't wanting and trying to do the EXACT same thing?
Blame goes both ways on this one.
Re: (Score:3)
You've GOT to be kidding me.
You cannot board a fucking airplane without proper ID.
Not true. From the TSA website:
In the event you arrive at the airport without valid identification, because it is lost or at home, you may still be allowed to fly. The TSA officer may ask you to complete an identity verification process which includes collecting information such as your name, current address, and other personal information to confirm your identity. If your identity is confirmed, you will be allowed to enter the screening checkpoint. You will be subject to additional screening, to include a patdown and screening of carry-on property.
You will not be allowed to enter the security checkpoint if your identity cannot be confirmed, you choose to not provide proper identification or you decline to cooperate with the identity verification process.
TSA recommends that you arrive at least two hours in advance of your flight time.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:4, Informative)
But no one censored him. His Tweet is still there. They just put a badge up on his tweet to indicate where you could go for fact checking his tweet. It's up the to reader to dictate what they want to believe, but fair enough for Twitter to put up what basically boils down to a "get the other side of the story" button for the President. The President has free speech, but he isn't free of repercussions of that speech.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
It always amazes me of the hypocrisy of the Right with regard to social media. There is no free speech right to social media. It's a private platform and the owners have every right to decide what voices and statements violate their terms of service. Free speech is the concept that you are protected from the government acting against speech it doesn't like, that right does not extend to protection from private companies or consequences.
In fact trying to impose restrictions on social media would be a much bigger attack on free speech as it would be direct government action against private speech and any attempt would likely be struck down by the courts for violating the 1st amendment.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe you missed the story, Trump is proposing to expand censorship here.
Re:Freedom of Speech and the Right to Vote (Score:4)
Considering that they fact checked him and were wrong on the facts it is a problem. Voter fraud is an issue, with over 1100 convictions in the US from the last few elections.
So that's about 100 proven cases during each election. For the country of 350 million people. So voter fraud basically DOES NOT EXIST.
Re: (Score:3)
When you're off the right end of the spectrum, even Hitler looks like a Marxist.
Re: (Score:3)
He does not.
There is (or should be, sadly) a thing called "checks and balances."
The President is not a dictator, despite what Trump would aspire to be.
Re: whoa (Score:3)
Why do you need to post more often than that? It's an anti-spam measure applied to everyone. It's not only applied to "conservative voices".
But he can't force them to change (Score:4, Interesting)
Heck, threatening to do so is a violation of Twitter's free speech rights.
Re:Fallout (Score:5, Insightful)
Social media that have been forcing their politics/religion on everyone have only themselves to blame.
It's a free market. I like how a lot of members of the Government spout that off relentlessly until something isn't going their way. Then suddenly we need to regulate it!!! If people don't like Twitter, go elsewhere then. If there's nowhere else to go, guess what?! You found a niche market, might as well capitalize on it. Trump is whining that he can't have a platform he can freely lie on, by all means, he can go build his own social platform.
As far as the other stuff goes. No one can make you believe a lie, you have to choose to believe it. At some point the buck passing has to stop and you just have to realize you got duped and move on with your life. But nobody forces shit on anyone else, we're all ultimately at fault for our own misgivings. This blaming social media shit is some serious dickless blame shifting. Social media is trash don't get me wrong. Just stay the fuck away from it. But if you're a cultist of social media, that's on you, not social media. The fact that you can't fucking unplug isn't anyone's fault but yours. There comes a point where people need to man up and realize that.
Re: (Score:3)
If your ideology and rhetoric all centers around making "everyone else" the enemy, You're going to get nothing but banned from polite society
I've said it before, but do you remember the last neo-Nazi, hate-filled and dangerous candidate the Republicans nominated for President?
Mitt Romney.
Practically every article written about Trump today could swap Romney's name for Trump and it wouldn't appear out of place back in 2012. Romney was going to strap your dog to his car, cram your women in binders, and relocate your children to Mexico where he could marry all of your daughters at once. He was Hitler in magic underwear. So bad that if elected the sk