Senator Ted Cruz Calls For Criminal Investigation of Twitter (axios.com) 161
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Axios: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), in a letter Friday to the Justice and Treasury departments, is calling for a criminal investigation of Twitter over allegations the company is violating U.S. sanctions against Iran. Twitter is already under fire from President Trump for adding fact checks and a warning label, respectively, to misleading and incendiary tweets he made in recent days. Cruz's letter adds another dimension to the tech company's woes in Washington.
Twitter allows Iranian leaders to maintain accounts on its service, and Cruz is asking Attorney General Bill Barr and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to probe whether that violates U.S. sanctions prohibiting American companies from providing goods or services to the country's top officials. "I believe that the primary goal of (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) and sanctions law should be to change the behavior of designated individuals and regimes, not American companies," Cruz wrote."But when a company willfully and openly violates the law after receiving formal notice that it is unlawfully supporting designated individuals, the federal government should take action." In February, Cruz led a letter from Republican senators to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, calling on the company to ban Iranian leaders from the site for the same reasons. Twitter responded in April, arguing that its service is exempt from the sanctions, and that the public conversation on the platform is critically important during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Fundamental values of openness, free expression, public accountability, and mutual understanding matter now more than ever," Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's legal, public policy & trust and safety lead, wrote. "Regardless of the political agenda of a particular nation state, to deny our service to their leaders at a time like this would be antithetical to the purpose of our company, which is to serve the global public conversation."
Twitter allows Iranian leaders to maintain accounts on its service, and Cruz is asking Attorney General Bill Barr and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to probe whether that violates U.S. sanctions prohibiting American companies from providing goods or services to the country's top officials. "I believe that the primary goal of (the International Emergency Economic Powers Act) and sanctions law should be to change the behavior of designated individuals and regimes, not American companies," Cruz wrote."But when a company willfully and openly violates the law after receiving formal notice that it is unlawfully supporting designated individuals, the federal government should take action." In February, Cruz led a letter from Republican senators to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, calling on the company to ban Iranian leaders from the site for the same reasons. Twitter responded in April, arguing that its service is exempt from the sanctions, and that the public conversation on the platform is critically important during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Fundamental values of openness, free expression, public accountability, and mutual understanding matter now more than ever," Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's legal, public policy & trust and safety lead, wrote. "Regardless of the political agenda of a particular nation state, to deny our service to their leaders at a time like this would be antithetical to the purpose of our company, which is to serve the global public conversation."
Ted Cruz has no spine (Score:5, Insightful)
He has stood by as Trump has insulted him, his father and his wife, and he continues to carry water for the man.
What a sad, pathetic man.
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Trump can't really do much to him other than tweet at him and call him names. It's not a spine he lacks, it's any form of integrity or self respect.
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Trump turns so many republican leaders into Reek.
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fix your shit america (Score:5, Insightful)
so fucking tired of america. fuck off and die. youre putting me on the side of fucking twitter.
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It's just political theater, all bark and no bite. It won't fly in court. Checks and balances usually mostly work.
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The mask has really slipped now, hasn't it? Sanctions designed to trip up their enemies and provide an excuse to prosecute them.
Accounts are free (Score:3)
If they were taking Iranian advertising that would be economic activity and a clear violation. Just allowing free accounts is no different economically from the media publishing their own, unpaid interviews with Iranians. Is Cruz really saying that’s illegal?
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...allowing free accounts...
This gets iffy if you are allowing actual government members to have accounts. Worse if said bodies are declaring them as official accounts. Just ask Instagram earlier this year. Few care if normal Iranian citizens access or use Twitter unless a good amount of commerce is facilitated.
As much as I dislike spineless Ted, I don't think Twitter will come out on top here. I doubt they would have in any Republican or even some Democratic administrations. Twitter is a public company, and you aren't allowed t
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Do they show ads to those people? Yes? That's economic activity.
So all US web sites featuring ads must block Iran IP addresses? Even if the ads are not placed by anyone in Iran? More importantly, even if the advertised products and services can't be sold to anyone in Iran?
Not going far enough (Score:2)
If a country does not allow its own people to access western social media, the evil dictators should also not be allowed.
Twitter is exempt as a telecommunications service (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.treasury.gov/resou... [treasury.gov]
Section 784 would include Twitter
Persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are authorized to engage in transactions that establish mechanisms to provide commercial telecommunications services in Cuba or linking third countries and Cuba. Persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction are also authorized to engage in telecommunications-related transactions, including payment related to the provision of telecommunications involving Cuba or provided to Cuban individuals. Pursuant to 31 CFR 515.542, U.S. persons may, for example, purchase calling cards for people to use in Cuba or pay the bills of such people directly to a telecommunications operator located in Cuba, such as ETECSA. These steps to facilitate improved access to telecommunications services for Cubans and increased international connections are intended to increase the ability of the Cuban people to communicate freely and to better provide for efficient and adequate telecommunications services between the United States and Cuba.
The CACR define telecommunications services to include data, telephone, telegraph, internet connectivity, radio, television, news wire feeds, and similar services, regardless of medium of transmission, including transmission by satellite. For a complete description of what this general license authorizes and the restrictions that apply, see 31 CFR 515.542. [09-06-2019]
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Twitter is a cesspool (Score:4, Informative)
Ban it, and humanity will be better for it.
Is impementing sanctions on particular... (Score:2)
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Yes.
Didn't Want to Do Anything When Trump Incited (Score:3)
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He was pro-twitter, when it allowed him to bypass the media and talk to the people directly. Now he is against it because of regulatory capture of twitter by the Democrats, who threaten 230 if twitter does not censor.
Facebook chooses not to, and is roundly attacked around here.
Classic Shakedown (Score:2)
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So let me get this straight (Score:2)
-- Twitter allows Iranian leaders to maintain accounts on its service, and Cruz is asking ... to probe whether that violates U.S. sanctions prohibiting American companies from providing goods or services to the country's top officials.
-- "But when a company willfully and openly violates the law after receiving formal notice that it is unlawfully supporting designated individuals, the federal government should take action."
So did they get a letter saying they were breaking the law before any check was done t
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Don't you think the Twitter sponsored assassination attempt against the Ayatollah more than compensates for not banning him?
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Re:Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think it's a bad thing for Twitter to let the goatfuckers post propaganda in a forum where they can get buried in responses that call them on their bullshit.
That's the traditional approach; the problem is that it takes much less effort to post bullshit than it does to fact-check bullshit. You can even write bots to spam your bullshit everywhere with automated variations, and people do that; the result is that eventually the fact-checkers and bullshit-callers get overwhelmed and give up, at which point the forum is reduced to a tool for misinformation and noise, and its utility becomes zero or negative.
Dunno what the fix is, but "drowning out the lies with truth" isn't it.
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By suppressing alt-right kooks, Twitter is just feeding into their paranoid of white-victimhood and convincing mainstream Republicans that maybe the kooks have a point that the media is in the pocket of the left.
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:2)
Well, I guess we would need to put a definition on media here. Like if I call TV media, there are channels on both sides.
Social media is a little different isnt it? You have people normally just consuming it, contributing it. On Tv the channel plays and people watch, or they change the channel. On social media you can face backlash of policies (as discussed here) and consumers interacting with the source.
Not so sure all media is liberal, but maybe its telling that in this case feedback caught some off g
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when you post something online, you have to expect hoards to disapprove and call you out on it.
There is a big difference between other participants calling you out, and the platform calling you out.
but aren't we all adults here?
No.
Lets grow up and work this out, find a common ground.
What if the ground itself isn't neutral?
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:2)
Well the ground isnt neufral, I agree, we all have perspective.
But trying to equate a platform as a peer doesnt make a whole lot of sense here. A platform ads a whole lot of dynamic. Its not the same as willimg no comcequence to saying somethimg around other people, you're using a method of communicating provided by somebody else. This is all happening while these platforms are getting grief for "allowing" violence urging speech from terrorists.. interestingly the president broke the same rule. What do
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:2)
Apparently posted this to my own comment... too many beer? Maybe :) will copy pasta to where i meant to
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:2)
Never mind, phone version of site bugged out. Looks ok since refeshed :)
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:2)
I think I'm guilty of this too. Not sure I followed everything you said, but I am now wondering if I lack my kids' perspective.
Certainly I've accused my parents of lacking mine. Interesting point of view!
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:2)
Lets be fair... I didn't once say I was mature...
However I do like your thought process. Indeed, I am set in my ways, and you are probably correct, we should be more willing to listen to anothers point of view.
Credit where credit due, it's not often you post something maybe worthy of "underrated" AC
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They wouldn't feel like there was white victimhood if there were more alt-right kooks from minority groups.
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By suppressing alt-right kooks, Twitter is just feeding into their paranoid of white-victimhood and convincing mainstream Republicans that maybe the kooks have a point that the media is in the pocket of the left.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Long term the results won't be good if you let the mental patients run the hospital.
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By suppressing alt-right kooks, Twitter is just feeding into their paranoid of white-victimhood and convincing mainstream Republicans that maybe the kooks have a point that the media is in the pocket of the left.
People standing against neo-nazis and confederate soldier wannabees would have a more noble cause if the narrative context wasn't playing to their own base that the entire other side consisted of these people, rather than just a fringe. Most of the right wing agrees with the left on this, and then finds themselves being labeled with it anyway.
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It's odd that I see so much religious posts on Facebook every day and yet every so often someone will imply that there's censorship against Christians on Facebook and so please share more of those posts. No evidence of censorship, yet the specter is there and the story that it is happening is making the rounds. Sometimes the story is that plans are being made to start banning or censoring, which is harder to refute since isn't not actively happening.
To be honest, I think most of this is really poltical me
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To be honest, I think most of this is really poltical messaging in disguise./p>
Duh. Trump's electoral strategy is based on creating outrage about middle-class white male Christian victimhood by swarms of immigrants, feminists, minorities, Muslims, and journalists.
It is unfortunate that the left keeps giving him ammunition.
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I know multiple people that go to church 3 times a week and buy into the "Christian discrimination" deal about every time. Before they discovered Facebook, they'd have Bill O'Reilly tell them about the War On Christmas every year. Right around the time when you can't enter a store or turn on the radio without hearing Christmas music.
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It does seem odd to sell Christmas stuff, but not say "Merry Christmas", for fear of offending non-Christians, suggesting a Christian's core beliefs are something they should be ashamed of. Nah, they're imagining it.
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:5, Informative)
I mean, even General Flynn twice said to a court that he was guilty, and not set up, so it seems thereâ(TM)s a legal record stating that Russiagate wasnâ(TM)t made up, and Flynn wasnâ(TM)t set up...
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Coerced Confessions are null and void. It was a set up from the beginning, had no basis for an instigation.
FBI threatened his family and bankrupted him.
You would have plead guilty too just to make it stop.
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No they're not -- for the same reason that they're not reporting on how the chem trails are making the frogs gay.
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Mod down: insulting the French
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Oh, and go ahead, assholes: mod me down to the sub-basement like you usually do. You just prove me right every time you do it.
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It's true. Freedom is for us and not for them. It's an old idea that's going to be sticking around awhile longer it seems.
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The few science fiction stories that bothered to make social predictions of the omnipresence of monitoring of conversation (Black Mirror's Bryce Dallas Howard episode, or Demolition Man) were horrid dystopias supported by the cheering of the masses.
Get a clue, people. The enemy of freedom is us.
Death to America! (Score:3, Interesting)
"A specialist from our team reviewed the post again and confirmed that it doesn't go against our Community Standards, including hate speech," the response read. "We base our policies our Community Standards on input from the people who use Facebook around the world, as well as experts."
Facebook's response to complaints about "death to America" ads run by an Iranian group.
They did, however, ban posts about "back to work" rallys.
When Ireland was having a vote about abortion, pro-life ads were banned.
Re:Death to America! (Score:4, Insightful)
Don't like Facebook doing whatever with their property, don't use them. It's what I do including host entries to route it to dev/null. Same with twitter, why anyone uses that, I don't know.
At least the internet isn't like a company town where there is only one town square.
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Yet here we are practicing free speech on this town square called Slashdot. You act like the only place to practice free speech is Facebook, one of the endless places on the internet. Rather then voting by not using Facebook, you want to force them to host your speech.
Perhaps I'm lucky as my country has net neutrality, so I can go to most any town square I choose. You seem to have the same freedom to post on Slashdot as I so it's not like your ISP is only allowing you to connect to Facebook and if it ever g
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How am I being dishonest? I stay the fuck away from Facebook so maybe I'm missing something. I don't like Facebook nor its owner and refuse to give them my business and it actually pisses me off that people like you are trying to normalize using it and I don't understand why.
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There are a couple of big problems with the article you linked.
First no company or individual can repeal any amendment it takes and act of congress and 3/4 of the states ratifying that act to repeal or add any amendment to the constitution. I really they are being a bit hyperbolic with the title of their article but the fact remains that companies/individuals cannot repeal any amendments.
Secondly, the first amendment doesn't even apply here since Twitter/Facebook is not the government. The first amendment o
How low can the Gang Of Trump go? (Score:2)
However much you lower the bar, Trump's flying monkeys will go under it. No, that was NOT a reference to Cruz's appearance, though the flying monkeys have said much worse about Lyin' Ted back in the days before he became Trump's BFF. It was a reference to the Wizard of Oz. Back in the days when America could still pretend it was great, eh? How can I work the barrel of monkeys into the joke? In this case, it has something to do with scraping the bottom of any barrel, so "You're gonna need a bigger barrel [of
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What America needs is a Bill of Rights, including the right to free speech and freedom of association. Then you need unbiased, non-political Judges who don't carve out exceptions to those freedoms for political reasons.
Unluckily as we see in these articles, you have a government that doesn't believe in basic rights like freedom of association and actually passes laws saying it is illegal to talk or otherwise associate with certain people.
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I don't recall Trump being banned, let me go check the news again as things are moving fast...
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Trump hasn't been banned... the only thing that Twitter did to any of his posts was provide some objectively factual context to comments that alleged something which has no basis in what has ever actually been proven to supposedly be indisputably true.
The only reason that Twitter probably doesn't do this more often with other users is simply on account of the lack of manpower to do so effectively.
Kind of like the same reason that you can probably get away with speeding without getting a ticket.... hav
Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:5, Informative)
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Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm beginning to believe the only biased people are those who ask if people really believe ${organisation} is unbiased.
No one is unbiased. The EFF has a bias towards civil liberty. There's no belief required, it's written in their mission statement. In fact it's in the first sentence. Now if on the other hand you're saying they are biased against republicans, then you sir are woefully ignorant. They don't give a crap what colour tie you're wearing.
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colour
Canadian?
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Why does that matter? At worst it just means you need to scrutinize their side a bit more.
Anyway, they did pretty much drive re-crafting the entire bill (Communications Decency Act) which was original a free speech limiting bill. I would think they are probably one of the foremost experts on it. Far more than Ted here or in the past.
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Re: Ban Trump, But give the Ayatollah a platform (Score:4, Insightful)
I hate to break it to you, sparky, but both users and editors on Slashdot moderate. Editors can, and have, deleted posts.
I still don't know why you think that matters if users or owners or employees handle moderation.
I also don't understand why you think it's okay for Twitter users to comment on tweets, but not Twitter. Why would the owner's freedom of speech be restricted more than their users on their own platform? It's ridiculous.
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Back when karma was visible, my +50 was bitchslapped down to -20, which made every new post automatic -1. As near as I could tell it was due to a joke about Kardashians bleaching a certain circular part of their body, but I never did really figure out why.
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NSFW barriers are a legal defense against accusations of presenting obscene content to a minor, and slashdot's moderation is cosmetic.
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It's transparently clear the metamoderation system, where moderations are moderated, in an attempt to depower people who mod for political reasons, is an abject failure, as it is just as susceptible to capture by the politically-oriented.
This very story is lousy with +5 for one side and -1 for the other as "troll", where "troll" means I felt a twinge of outrage at the denial of the received wisdom of my echo chamber holodeck.
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But Congress has made many laws... the run completely afoul of the Constitution. Every one of them has been broken by laws that are on the books.
I don't think Congress is giving much of a shit because most Americas are for the destruction of the Constitution in one form or another.
From the 1st to the last Amendment... one side or the other has attacked it. And the Articles themselves ignored to significant degrees!
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That's not true. Most Americans don't mind the 3rd amendment.
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If anything, they wish the 3rd was stronger. In one of only two 3rd amendment cases to get to the Supreme Court, ever, the court ruled that temporary seizure of a neighbor's house by police during a hostage siege did not count as "quartering troops in private homes during peacetime without permission of the owner" because police were not military troops in that context.
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Well it does refer to soldiers and times of peace. When was the last time that America was at peace?
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There is plenty of current debate on whether the remedy for liable should be limited to awarded money, or include court bans on further repitition of the liable, which touches on this exact issue. Bans on anyone except for the original liabler (e.g. a search engine, or news companies) are unfortunately still argued, though fall in favor of freedom.
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But they did.
And it only applies to Iran.
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Twitter allows Iran's leaders to lie ( providing services to Iran is illegal) ... calls out the US President for their interpretations of his political speech.
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The constitution applies to American authority, regardless who the target is. They have not declared war, there are no "enemies".
Twitter has the 1st amendment right to air whoever it pleases.
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Twitter has the 1st amendment right to air whoever it pleases.
They do, but that right includes not censoring to appease politicians threatening section 230 in the first place, because they don't censor in ways the politicians like.
The debate here and everywhere assumes Twitter does this of their own free will rather than because of fears of changes to laws.
Did nobody notice the Democratic primaries, where the candidates kept one-upping each other on how to legally hurt the media tech giants if they don't censor hate speech. And we won't even get into talk of breaking
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Make no mistake attacking Google, M$, Facebook and Twitter are all paths to political popularity, also in the firing line is Amazon. Talk up FOSS, as routes to saving money in government and reducing the tax burden on the poorest, will also win points. As those corrupt corporate own the DNC, they are fucked, the DNC can not attack them to deflate the Republican anti-monopolistic tech attack (keep in mind they all impact medium and small business enormously and have a real negative impact in terms of costs,
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Shame you guys don't have any rights besides what the government grudgingly gives you. Next President might attack your speech or limit your associating with your peers.
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Really? In the United States of America? So the republic has officially died then? Along with freedom of speech? The US is just as authoritarian as China and Russia now? That's very sad indeed and to the detriment of the entire world.
No, that's not what I said, I said it is really stupid for twitter to pick this fight. They should have picked this fight if they weren't curating their content to allow violent speech and harrasment. It's stupid to pick "free speech" when you are ensuring that you allow hateful speech that you agree with.
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Trump isn't the government. This is a fight that Twitter has already won.
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You're assuming Twitter is exercising free will here, rather than doing the bidding of the other side, under fears of threats from that very side to change 230, or break them up. Trump and some Republican senators are just playing catch up in the threaten-230 game.
Fact is, neither side should be able to do this. Need I remind people of the Democratic primaries, where the candidates kept one-upping each other on how to hurt the big media companies by using government to force them to censor hate speech? I
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Trump can shout "FIRE!" in your theater. He can GTFO of mine.
That aside, that cliché doesn't work the way you think it does. [wikipedia.org]
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It's ironic California is one of the few states that protects against discrimination based on political beliefs. Of course that was way back when, when it was the left's beliefs that needed protecting.
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Trump said that he fired Flynn for lying to Pence.
Do you think that Trump was lying 2017? If so, what makes you think that his new story is any more true?
Re: Fishing expedition (Score:2)
Because of course Trump saw the original 302's and the agents' notes which would allow him to know Flynn wasn't lying.
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False, many EU countries have a lower death rate. I am not gonna do your research for you though, unless Google banned you.
Re:100,000 (Score:4, Informative)
That is simply not true. [ourworldindata.org]
Re: 100,000 (Score:2)
Hey now, that's not true. I mean, if the likes of New York and Pennsylvania weren't actively trying to kill off their elderly populations it would be true, but since they are it's not.
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Obama hasn't been President for 3+ years. Let it go. I am not your friend.
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Trump isn't the federal government.
In this fight, he's completely toothless. He hit them as hard as he can with an arguably illegal executive order. (He has no further means to attack them with the power of his office.) Twitter has already won.
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Twitter has won? Or the Democats, who twist Twitter's arm by threatening section 230, or a complete breakup as "too powerful", have won?
You presume Twitter does this of their own free will rather than in response to the Democratic primary, with endless candidates threatening them for not censoring. The Republicans are just playing catchup in that department.
The correct answer is for politicians to stop this, either by courts, or by the outrage of the masses making them fear for their jobs. But apparently
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You think Trump is WAY more influential than he his. Trumps Kristallnacht, sorry, MAGA night, was a giant failure. The few that did show up around the country were over run by protestors who weren't going to let Trump start a civil war.
Hell, this won't even hurt Twitter in the eyes of his followers. They love twitter. That's where they receive messages from the dear leader. As long as Trump continues to use Twitter endlessly, he undermines any negative comments he makes about them.
Twitter won the minu