4 ms·

It's amazing from a business perspective, but at a certain point ethical questions arise. Should Twitter give a world shakingly powerful lier an unfiltered plat

It's amazing from a business perspective, but at a certain point ethical questions arise. Should Twitter give a world shakingly powerful lier an unfiltered platform to the public? If he had to go through the press, everything he said would be filtered by editors and fact checkers. Incredible business opportunity, but frankly, the fate of the world is in part being determined by Twitter's granting him a platform. I can understand their vacillation around this issue.

sumedh 10y ago
> Should Twitter give a world shakingly powerful lier an unfiltered platform to the public? All Politicians lie. Twitter is not in the business of being a fact checker.
- foldr 10y ago
  Not all politicians retweet white supremacists, though.
  - foldr 10y ago
    To the downvoters: this is directly relevant, as hate speech violates twitter's rules, and they have indicated that they will apply these rules to Trump's account just like anyone else's: > Asked whether Twitter would ever consider banning key government officials or even the president himself, a company spokesperson responded via email: “The Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.” Pressed on whether that meant that, hypothetically, Trump himself could be suspended were he to violate those policies, a spokesperson confirmed: “The Twitter Rules apply to all accounts, including verified accounts.”
    - concinds 10y ago
      The anti-"hate speech" hysteria is simply reflective of the Silicon Valley political bubble, and its inevitable biases. The MTV video would have been considered hate speech had it been directed at any other ethnicity. Twitter going out of their way to say that they might ban the US President isn't exactly a sign of the professionalism and maturity people expect from multinational executives.
      - SapphireSun 10y ago
        Rather, I believe the correct interpretation is the opposite. The US President is not demonstrating the level of maturity and professionalism we expect from the leader of the free world. We're not playing small ball here.
inimino 10y ago
> If he had to go through the press, everything he said would be filtered by editors and fact checkers. Are you joking? The press would say "'...', Donald Trump said on Monday". Anyone who can't infer the "Donald Trump said" part from the Twitter UI shouldn't be unsupervised near a computer or a newspaper.
- SapphireSun 10y ago
  You're 100% correct, though some of his sitting on the toilet thoughts might not make it to the public. What the news, when its being done correctly, does is provide surrounding context to interpret the remarks. This is valuable even for normal politicians as, it bears repeating, it is impossible for the population as a whole to be informed on every issue, and most people aren't informed on even a few. Low information constituents will misinterpret remarks without context. It also encourages him to publicize views that can withstand press scrutiny. The outrageous stuff we see on Twitter might have been self censored if he had to tell it to a skeptical press that will place them in context. Prior presidents have been very circumspect in what they say, which has reduced the pressure on this point. Extreme situations pressure us to discard gray areas. In order to maintain a healthy civic discourse, we need everyone to cooperate more and be more generous to the other side, but this can't be done unilaterally or you just get steamrolled.

sumedh 10y ago

> Should Twitter give a world shakingly powerful lier an unfiltered platform to the public? All Politicians lie. Twitter is not in the business of being a fact checker.

foldr 10y ago
Not all politicians retweet white supremacists, though.
- foldr 10y ago
  To the downvoters: this is directly relevant, as hate speech violates twitter's rules, and they have indicated that they will apply these rules to Trump's account just like anyone else's: > Asked whether Twitter would ever consider banning key government officials or even the president himself, a company spokesperson responded via email: “The Twitter Rules prohibit violent threats, harassment, hateful conduct, and multiple account abuse, and we will take action on accounts violating those policies.” Pressed on whether that meant that, hypothetically, Trump himself could be suspended were he to violate those policies, a spokesperson confirmed: “The Twitter Rules apply to all accounts, including verified accounts.”
  - concinds 10y ago
    The anti-"hate speech" hysteria is simply reflective of the Silicon Valley political bubble, and its inevitable biases. The MTV video would have been considered hate speech had it been directed at any other ethnicity. Twitter going out of their way to say that they might ban the US President isn't exactly a sign of the professionalism and maturity people expect from multinational executives.
    - SapphireSun 10y ago
      Rather, I believe the correct interpretation is the opposite. The US President is not demonstrating the level of maturity and professionalism we expect from the leader of the free world. We're not playing small ball here.

inimino 10y ago

> If he had to go through the press, everything he said would be filtered by editors and fact checkers. Are you joking? The press would say "'...', Donald Trump said on Monday". Anyone who can't infer the "Donald Trump said" part from the Twitter UI shouldn't be unsupervised near a computer or a newspaper.

SapphireSun 10y ago
You're 100% correct, though some of his sitting on the toilet thoughts might not make it to the public. What the news, when its being done correctly, does is provide surrounding context to interpret the remarks. This is valuable even for normal politicians as, it bears repeating, it is impossible for the population as a whole to be informed on every issue, and most people aren't informed on even a few. Low information constituents will misinterpret remarks without context. It also encourages him to publicize views that can withstand press scrutiny. The outrageous stuff we see on Twitter might have been self censored if he had to tell it to a skeptical press that will place them in context. Prior presidents have been very circumspect in what they say, which has reduced the pressure on this point. Extreme situations pressure us to discard gray areas. In order to maintain a healthy civic discourse, we need everyone to cooperate more and be more generous to the other side, but this can't be done unilaterally or you just get steamrolled.