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The tweets of the President have to be allowed, for being newsworthy. Suppose they banned him, and then someone else reported on what he said. Would they ban t

The tweets of the President have to be allowed, for being newsworthy. Suppose they banned him, and then someone else reported on what he said. Would they ban that person too, even though they are just reporting on the words of the most powerful person in the world? The words of the President of the United States have to be allowed no matter what. Twitter shouldn’t even get into this game. They should allow any content that is legal under US law.

mplewis 9y ago
Reporting on something that harasses or incites violence is not endorsement of it. Actively spreading the harassing or inciting material is an implicit endorsement - you could stop it if you wanted.
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  Okay, suppose I have an account, @potustweets, that just repeats the President’s statements. Are you going to ban that too? The words of the elected leader of the most powerful country of the world are by definition newsworthy and worthy of discussion. Or are you implying that they are allowed, but only with commentary that condemns them? Then you are discriminating based on opinion. You are turning Twitter into a platform in which only certain opinions are allowed, even though the prohibited ones have the support of half of the United States. There is no way around this. You must allow the words of the President.
  - viraptor 9y ago
    Repeat the statements - sure, ban them if they cross the line, even in quoting. You can always report on the statements instead. "Xyz harassed S, used slurs while taking about P, and ..." can be still talked about as things that happen without repeating the insults word-for-word.
    - kappaloris 9y ago
      If you're not reporting verbatim, you're adding an opinion.
      - viraptor 9y ago
        True, but I don't think very relevant in this case. You can always link to a transcript on another service, or your own hosting, but it doesn't have to be on twitter. On the other hand, twitter adds an opinion almost by default. Which sentence you choose, how you cram it into 140 chars, what do you normally tweet about, where you tweeted from, who you are - these can be used to guess your opinion in almost every case.
  - rootlocus 9y ago
    You're not getting the point. They're not banning people, they're banning content. If the president tweeted: "Negros are inferior" that would be banned. If you tweeted "Negros are inferior", it doesn't really matter where you copied the tweet from, it will be banned too.
    - nnfy 9y ago
      Hold on, you dont think it absurd that, by the logic in your post, if I retweet something as newsworthy as the president tweeting "negroes are bad", that I will be banned as well? This is exactly the kind of myopic mindset that makes me worry about twitter censoring speech. Not to mention how easy such censorship is to abuse in order to, say, craft a narrative...
      - rootlocus 9y ago
        Freedom of speech doesn't protect you to spreading hate and fear. And, of course, there's a difference between tweeting "the president said <...>" and copying it verbatim.
        marcoperaza 9y ago
        If you want to bring freedom of speech into this as a legal concept, then it does protect “hate and fear”. Twitter is not bound by such legal requirements, but they do claim to allow open political discourse.
        rootlocus 9y ago
        > If you want to bring freedom of speech into this as a legal concept, then it does protect “hate and fear”. Legally, nothing protects "hate and fear". That defeats the entire purpose of having laws. > Twitter is not bound by such legal requirements, How so? Every company is bound by legal requirements.
        marcoperaza 9y ago
- nnfy 9y ago
  >Actively spreading the harassing or inciting material is an implicit endorsement - you could stop it if you wanted. Hosting an open forum is not the same as endorsing ideas on said forum. In fact, I would argue strongly to the contrary-twitter has an implicit social responsibility to allow all dialogue, as it is effectively in a position to limit speech, given the size of its audience and its position as a disseminator of information. Do you really want faceless corporations like Facebook, google, and twitter deciding what is and is not appropriate material? Especially when they effectively have more immediate power in censoring or creating narratives than our own government?
jakelazaroff 9y ago
> The words of the President of the United States have to be allowed no matter what. > Twitter shouldn’t even get into this game. They should allow any content that is legal under US law. And if the President of the United States were to tweet something illegal?
- marcoperaza 9y ago
  Impossible. The President has absolute freedom of speech. He is the elected head of the Executive branch. To read any legal limitation on his ability to speak his mind is to allow the other branches of government to unconstitutionally limit his powers. No other branch of government can claim that authority over him.
  - dawnerd 9y ago
    Freedom of speech does not extend to private entities such as twitter.
    - marcoperaza 9y ago
      >Freedom of speech does not extend to private entities such as twitter. I was responding specifically to this claim: >And if the President of the United States were to tweet something illegal? Shifting the goal posts mid conversation is incredibly dishonest. You can see my other replies on the larger thread for the reason why Twitter should not censor him, even though they legally could.
    - withdavidli 9y ago
      It does unless Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is outdated [0]. [0]https://ballotpedia.org/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission https://ballotpedia.org/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_...
      - jakelazaroff 9y ago
        That decision lifted a restriction preventing private entities from running political advertisements in certain situations. What people generally mean (and indeed, what dawnerd means here) when they say "freedom of speech does not extend to private entities” is that even if speech is legal, a private entity has no obligation to host or disseminate it.
freeone3000 9y ago
Why could they not ban that person, too? Twitter has banned people for reasons such as not having a phone number, or making fun of the Prime Minister of India. If the President wants to make his words heard, he can post on his own website. There's no need for twitter to be complicit.

mplewis 9y ago

Reporting on something that harasses or incites violence is not endorsement of it. Actively spreading the harassing or inciting material is an implicit endorsement - you could stop it if you wanted.

marcoperaza 9y ago
Okay, suppose I have an account, @potustweets, that just repeats the President’s statements. Are you going to ban that too? The words of the elected leader of the most powerful country of the world are by definition newsworthy and worthy of discussion. Or are you implying that they are allowed, but only with commentary that condemns them? Then you are discriminating based on opinion. You are turning Twitter into a platform in which only certain opinions are allowed, even though the prohibited ones have the support of half of the United States. There is no way around this. You must allow the words of the President.
- viraptor 9y ago
  Repeat the statements - sure, ban them if they cross the line, even in quoting. You can always report on the statements instead. "Xyz harassed S, used slurs while taking about P, and ..." can be still talked about as things that happen without repeating the insults word-for-word.
  - kappaloris 9y ago
    If you're not reporting verbatim, you're adding an opinion.
    - viraptor 9y ago
      True, but I don't think very relevant in this case. You can always link to a transcript on another service, or your own hosting, but it doesn't have to be on twitter. On the other hand, twitter adds an opinion almost by default. Which sentence you choose, how you cram it into 140 chars, what do you normally tweet about, where you tweeted from, who you are - these can be used to guess your opinion in almost every case.
- rootlocus 9y ago
  You're not getting the point. They're not banning people, they're banning content. If the president tweeted: "Negros are inferior" that would be banned. If you tweeted "Negros are inferior", it doesn't really matter where you copied the tweet from, it will be banned too.
  - nnfy 9y ago
    Hold on, you dont think it absurd that, by the logic in your post, if I retweet something as newsworthy as the president tweeting "negroes are bad", that I will be banned as well? This is exactly the kind of myopic mindset that makes me worry about twitter censoring speech. Not to mention how easy such censorship is to abuse in order to, say, craft a narrative...
    - rootlocus 9y ago
      Freedom of speech doesn't protect you to spreading hate and fear. And, of course, there's a difference between tweeting "the president said <...>" and copying it verbatim.
      - marcoperaza 9y ago
        If you want to bring freedom of speech into this as a legal concept, then it does protect “hate and fear”. Twitter is not bound by such legal requirements, but they do claim to allow open political discourse.
        rootlocus 9y ago
        > If you want to bring freedom of speech into this as a legal concept, then it does protect “hate and fear”. Legally, nothing protects "hate and fear". That defeats the entire purpose of having laws. > Twitter is not bound by such legal requirements, How so? Every company is bound by legal requirements.
        marcoperaza 9y ago
nnfy 9y ago
>Actively spreading the harassing or inciting material is an implicit endorsement - you could stop it if you wanted. Hosting an open forum is not the same as endorsing ideas on said forum. In fact, I would argue strongly to the contrary-twitter has an implicit social responsibility to allow all dialogue, as it is effectively in a position to limit speech, given the size of its audience and its position as a disseminator of information. Do you really want faceless corporations like Facebook, google, and twitter deciding what is and is not appropriate material? Especially when they effectively have more immediate power in censoring or creating narratives than our own government?

jakelazaroff 9y ago

> The words of the President of the United States have to be allowed no matter what. > Twitter shouldn’t even get into this game. They should allow any content that is legal under US law. And if the President of the United States were to tweet something illegal?

marcoperaza 9y ago
Impossible. The President has absolute freedom of speech. He is the elected head of the Executive branch. To read any legal limitation on his ability to speak his mind is to allow the other branches of government to unconstitutionally limit his powers. No other branch of government can claim that authority over him.
- dawnerd 9y ago
  Freedom of speech does not extend to private entities such as twitter.
  - marcoperaza 9y ago
    >Freedom of speech does not extend to private entities such as twitter. I was responding specifically to this claim: >And if the President of the United States were to tweet something illegal? Shifting the goal posts mid conversation is incredibly dishonest. You can see my other replies on the larger thread for the reason why Twitter should not censor him, even though they legally could.
  - withdavidli 9y ago
    It does unless Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is outdated [0]. [0]https://ballotpedia.org/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_Commission https://ballotpedia.org/Citizens_United_v._Federal_Election_...
    - jakelazaroff 9y ago
      That decision lifted a restriction preventing private entities from running political advertisements in certain situations. What people generally mean (and indeed, what dawnerd means here) when they say "freedom of speech does not extend to private entities” is that even if speech is legal, a private entity has no obligation to host or disseminate it.

freeone3000 9y ago

Why could they not ban that person, too? Twitter has banned people for reasons such as not having a phone number, or making fun of the Prime Minister of India. If the President wants to make his words heard, he can post on his own website. There's no need for twitter to be complicit.