I respect his decision. But I for one do not want our president, no matter who she or he is to be censored. I want to know exactly what they are saying and when. That includes any government official for that matter because it directly affects my voting decisions and actions.
This is why I liked Twitter's action (weird to say). They didn't hide the tweets, they just added context to say "hey, this is wrong according to actual studies" and to warn users of violent rhetoric. I know some will make the slippery slope argument, but I'm glad Twitter did something to take a stand against one of the most high-profile members of our society spreading misinformation, hate, and vitriol.
You're robbing the situation of all of its nuance. You could say corporations helping spread a proto-fascist leader’s call to violence against protesters who are exercising their right to free speech and assembly after a government agent murdered a citizen in the middle of street is a dystopia we should all be against. But that wouldn’t capture the whole issue either.
it's a tough problem to solve or reason about. i personally don't have any answers around this, but do you allow hate to spread and then be reactive about it and deal with the consequences? or do you nip it at the bud proactively allowing for potentially something that you wrote? some sort of censorship. how do you deal with it?
sure, but realistically this is exactly what has been happening if you just look at the last few years. many people are extremely misinformed and there are tons of propaganda campaigns. finding the real truth is borderline impossible. what is the solution? continue as is until someone more and more radical comes along bending truth to their will? there's gotta be some middle ground between a ministry of truth and just completely lawlessness.
No, you've been told that because people aren't happy with the current status quo.
There has always been propaganda and the truth is always possible to find.
Unless you have something specific I feel like you're using hyperboles (think of the children!!!) to win your way.
It's not lawlessness, people aren't extremely misinformed (if they are that's on them), the truth isn't borderline impossible.
This truth hunt will die out when the people seeking it are back in charge.
Yes remove threats, but don't remove lies. Having lies on your platform is not lawlessness, it's the internet.
If you don't want lies then take 230 away from them and make them take down libel/slander/lies that EVERYONE says, not just the people they choose to target.
Is it wrong to think that people elected to lead should be treated differently during their tenure in office? Regardless of better/worse, harder/softer, etc, I don't necessarily think that's immediately an indictment of Twitter to have POTUS say something outlandish and have nothing done, and have a bot account say the same thing and get banned. For all we know at noon on Jan. 20th Twitter will ban Trump's entire family.
You’re right to want to be able to look into what elected officials have said, but social media additionally allows posts to be shared, commented on, and spread widely.
There are thousands of elected officials, so it’s not simply a theoretical question to ask what should be done when one of them posts dangerous misinformation. Shouldn’t Facebook prevent it from spreading widely?
How is this any different from a President giving a speech that people don't agree with on TV? Or making statements that are covered in newspapers?
Spreading widely is the only reason we should censor speech? If what a person says is absolutely ridiculous, it should be seen and exposed by sunlight and more discussion.
I don't know if it qualifies as censorship. Facebook or other social media platforms aren't public spaces, they are private.
You can remove whatever you want from your own private platform. If president trump want to say something that is removed from these platform I'm sure he can host his own blog.
If you're going to use a social media platform, you have to obey by the rules of that platform. It's not censorship. He's still free to say whatever he wants, just not on that platform.
Ordinarily I'd agree, but Trump is perhaps a special case here. Almost every single thing he says on social media is designed to cause division and sow the seeds of racism, xenophobia, or indeed anything that panders to would-be voters. Pretty much everything else is verifiably false, or completely ludicrous to the point where you really have to question his intelligence, let alone his capability to lead a country.
I genuinely wonder if we should be giving this vile person a platform through which he can so effectively reach so many people so frequently.
I disagree. I keep trying to figure out ways in which I can show people why I disagree.
What would have happened if Facebook had been around in the 1920s and Hitler had said, I want to round up all of the people of Jewish decent and murder them... in a really bad way?
Now what would have happened if that message was only shared locally not globally. Or it was determined by the majority what message could be shared. Many people love comparing Trump to Hitler, but what they forget is Hitler was LOVED. He was eloquent. He was a great at harnessing everyone's rage and controlling it. He was an EVIL controlling dictator, but he understood how to control the majority well. Trump does not. If he wins again it will not be majority votes it will be electoral college.
Now Obama, in his first election knew how to influence people. Shit, sorry I miss that guy, I digress.
The problem is when a politician says something that can be backed up by force it's a fact, not an opinion. If I Said, Trump should, "do XYZ". It's an opinion and if it's egregious enough it should be discarded. If I say, "I want to do XYZ to This person." It needs to be kept if only as proof of intent (even if it's no longer shared via algorithm). Now if I were to say, I want to start a war, and I had the legal right, power, and capability to do so. It should be kept, spread AND commented on. Because one thing that comments do well is breed divisiveness and I don't want unity on posts which are hateful.
The thoughts of a leader need to be spread. Even if you abhor Trump, I don't want to stop his message unless he loses power over me. Because no matter what you want he has POWER over all of us. We have power too as has been seen recently. But information is power, to remove information is to dis-empower the people. He's not a redneck with a gun. He's a redneck with nukes.
