4 ms·

To be fair, why does any major political figure, celeb, influencer, or whoever waste effort/time to 'block' anyone on Twitter? Esp. with someone like Trump, the

To be fair, why does any major political figure, celeb, influencer, or whoever waste effort/time to 'block' anyone on Twitter? Esp. with someone like Trump, they probably have too many mentions/activity for any real human to sort through, that they probably just ignore all that noise anyways. I can't imagine how you'd sift through the millions of @ replies he receives everyday. So, even if they can 'block' them, I don't understand the value in it. Seems odd they would even waste their time with it, and not just ignore that tab/feature all together in Twitter. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

howard941 7y ago
> I don't understand the value in it That's probably because you're not trolling.
- bluetidepro 7y ago
  Well right, but with the level of activity they get, how can they read any replies? It's like trying to use the live chat on Twitch or something, it moves so fast that there isn't anything valuable in there anyways. I don't understand why they wouldn't just ignore all activity and just use it for a platform to go one direct (out vs in).
dragonwriter 7y ago
> To be fair, why does any major political figure, celeb, influencer, or whoever waste effort/time to 'block' anyone on Twitter? Blocking prevents blocked posts from gaining visibility due to their association with the account doing the blocking and it's content; public figures don't do it to manage what they see themselves (they have other methods of managing that) but to control what other people viewing their content see alongside it; it's a method of censorship. (Which is why it's a First Amendment issue when a government official does it in a forum which meets the legal standard for a public forum.)
- bluetidepro 7y ago
  Oh really? I didn't know their algorithm took that into account. Are you 100% positive on that? I would be curious to see where you read about that. If that's the case, it must not be super effective, because I know from first hand I've seen organic tweets show up in my feed by other celebs criticizing Trump, whom he has blocked.
  - dangus 7y ago
    Yes, you can actually see sort of a "switch" flip after Trump lost this court ruling the first time. All his Twitter replies at the top were supportive. Afterwards his top replies tend to be critical. It's not about which tweets show up in your feed, it's about which users replies are allowed/shown in Trump's own feed. He can't block anyone so anyone is allowed to reply and be seen.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    On Twitter, the specific mechanism of censorship is that a blocked user cannot view and reply to tweets of the account that blocked them, and so cannot participate in conversations started by the blocking account. It doesn't prevent collateral @-mentions. (My post upthread was a little too general to be clear about Twitter specifically, as it addressed the general idea of social media blocking and not the specific mechanisms relevant to Twitter.)
    - bluetidepro 7y ago
      Ohhh I see. Totally get what you mean now, yeah that makes more sense.
- belorn 7y ago
  The court is taking a large step in defining twitter as a public space. When private property is so functionally akin to public property that it is deemed a public forum then it is within precedence that the private owner may also be restricted in denying speech based on the First Amendment. Marsh v. Alabama, the Court held that the private owner of a company town could not forbid distribution of religious materials by a Jehovah’s Witness on a street in the town’s business district. The town, wholly owned by a private corporation, had all the attributes of any American municipality, aside from its ownership, and was functionally like any other town. In those circumstances, the Court reasoned, “the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”. An other case is the Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > The court is taking a large step in defining twitter as a public space. It is not; it is defining the Presidents Twitter account (or perhaps more accurately the discussion space created by direct interaction with that account) as a limited public forum. The distinction between the narrower space and the whole of Twitter is significant. Were the court to find Twitter as such to be a (limited or otherwise) public forum, that would be a very different story, but finding that government use of Twitter creates a space within Twitter that is a limited public forum is a very different thing. > An other case is the Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza. And a later Supreme Court decision, cutting the opposite way from Logan Valley Plaza (1968), is Lloyd Corp v. Tanner (1972).
    - belorn 7y ago
      Lets focus what the court actually wrote. The claim I did was that the court took a step towards having twitter defined as a public space. "Parker wrote, noting that Trump left his account public and enabled anyone to engage with it" I would say that covers the wast majority of twitter accounts, as most accounts are public and enable anyone to engage with it. Other social media platforms may have other ratios of public and private accounts. Parker ended the opinion with what he called a reminder to both parties in the case and the public: "If the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less." They court did explicitly say that they did not consider if twitter as a whole should be considered as public forum or not. They did however lay the ground work for it by answering A) if online social media can be considered public forum, B) what attributed and circumstances makes an account a public forum. The whole text: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1365-trump-twitter-second-circuit-r/c0f4e0701b087dab9b43/optimized/full.pdf#page=1 https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1365-trump-twitter-s... Some important quotes: "That account has interactive features open to the public, making public interaction a prominent feature of the account". "Opening an instrumentality of communication for indiscriminate use by the general public creates a public forum."
moate 7y ago
>>why does any major political figure, celeb, influencer, or whoever waste effort/time to 'block' anyone on Twitter They don't. They hire someone to do it for them. In that instance they're just wasting money, and if you're employed by the government you're just wasting someone else's money so no cost. And as someone else said, you block people if you're a politician because you don't want the opposition message gaining ground of your platform. I understand why they would want to do it, I also believe they shouldn't be allowed to as public servants.
- krapp 7y ago
  I'm pretty sure Trump does most of his own tweeting, though. He seems legitimately addicted to the platform. Although there was an article during the election suggesting you could tell the difference between Trump and his handlers tweeting by the way the tweets were worded, so he probably isn't alone.
noobermin 7y ago
I'm not a famous person, but from what I can tell, the pile ons get tiring and a human can only take so much.
- zimpenfish 7y ago
  I think if you run for POTUS, you're explicitly acknowledging that there will be constant public criticism etc. and that you do accept those as part of the job. You can't say "X is fit to be (effective) Leader of the Free World but can't deal with their own Twitter account" (which is, by their own doing, extremely controversial.)

howard941 7y ago

> I don't understand the value in it That's probably because you're not trolling.

bluetidepro 7y ago
Well right, but with the level of activity they get, how can they read any replies? It's like trying to use the live chat on Twitch or something, it moves so fast that there isn't anything valuable in there anyways. I don't understand why they wouldn't just ignore all activity and just use it for a platform to go one direct (out vs in).

dragonwriter 7y ago

> To be fair, why does any major political figure, celeb, influencer, or whoever waste effort/time to 'block' anyone on Twitter? Blocking prevents blocked posts from gaining visibility due to their association with the account doing the blocking and it's content; public figures don't do it to manage what they see themselves (they have other methods of managing that) but to control what other people viewing their content see alongside it; it's a method of censorship. (Which is why it's a First Amendment issue when a government official does it in a forum which meets the legal standard for a public forum.)

bluetidepro 7y ago
Oh really? I didn't know their algorithm took that into account. Are you 100% positive on that? I would be curious to see where you read about that. If that's the case, it must not be super effective, because I know from first hand I've seen organic tweets show up in my feed by other celebs criticizing Trump, whom he has blocked.
- dangus 7y ago
  Yes, you can actually see sort of a "switch" flip after Trump lost this court ruling the first time. All his Twitter replies at the top were supportive. Afterwards his top replies tend to be critical. It's not about which tweets show up in your feed, it's about which users replies are allowed/shown in Trump's own feed. He can't block anyone so anyone is allowed to reply and be seen.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  On Twitter, the specific mechanism of censorship is that a blocked user cannot view and reply to tweets of the account that blocked them, and so cannot participate in conversations started by the blocking account. It doesn't prevent collateral @-mentions. (My post upthread was a little too general to be clear about Twitter specifically, as it addressed the general idea of social media blocking and not the specific mechanisms relevant to Twitter.)
  - bluetidepro 7y ago
    Ohhh I see. Totally get what you mean now, yeah that makes more sense.
belorn 7y ago
The court is taking a large step in defining twitter as a public space. When private property is so functionally akin to public property that it is deemed a public forum then it is within precedence that the private owner may also be restricted in denying speech based on the First Amendment. Marsh v. Alabama, the Court held that the private owner of a company town could not forbid distribution of religious materials by a Jehovah’s Witness on a street in the town’s business district. The town, wholly owned by a private corporation, had all the attributes of any American municipality, aside from its ownership, and was functionally like any other town. In those circumstances, the Court reasoned, “the more an owner, for his advantage, opens up his property for use by the public in general, the more do his rights become circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who use it.”. An other case is the Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > The court is taking a large step in defining twitter as a public space. It is not; it is defining the Presidents Twitter account (or perhaps more accurately the discussion space created by direct interaction with that account) as a limited public forum. The distinction between the narrower space and the whole of Twitter is significant. Were the court to find Twitter as such to be a (limited or otherwise) public forum, that would be a very different story, but finding that government use of Twitter creates a space within Twitter that is a limited public forum is a very different thing. > An other case is the Food Employees Union v. Logan Valley Plaza. And a later Supreme Court decision, cutting the opposite way from Logan Valley Plaza (1968), is Lloyd Corp v. Tanner (1972).
  - belorn 7y ago
    Lets focus what the court actually wrote. The claim I did was that the court took a step towards having twitter defined as a public space. "Parker wrote, noting that Trump left his account public and enabled anyone to engage with it" I would say that covers the wast majority of twitter accounts, as most accounts are public and enable anyone to engage with it. Other social media platforms may have other ratios of public and private accounts. Parker ended the opinion with what he called a reminder to both parties in the case and the public: "If the First Amendment means anything, it means that the best response to disfavored speech on matters of public concern is more speech, not less." They court did explicitly say that they did not consider if twitter as a whole should be considered as public forum or not. They did however lay the ground work for it by answering A) if online social media can be considered public forum, B) what attributed and circumstances makes an account a public forum. The whole text: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1365-trump-twitter-second-circuit-r/c0f4e0701b087dab9b43/optimized/full.pdf#page=1 https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/1365-trump-twitter-s... Some important quotes: "That account has interactive features open to the public, making public interaction a prominent feature of the account". "Opening an instrumentality of communication for indiscriminate use by the general public creates a public forum."

moate 7y ago

>>why does any major political figure, celeb, influencer, or whoever waste effort/time to 'block' anyone on Twitter They don't. They hire someone to do it for them. In that instance they're just wasting money, and if you're employed by the government you're just wasting someone else's money so no cost. And as someone else said, you block people if you're a politician because you don't want the opposition message gaining ground of your platform. I understand why they would want to do it, I also believe they shouldn't be allowed to as public servants.

krapp 7y ago
I'm pretty sure Trump does most of his own tweeting, though. He seems legitimately addicted to the platform. Although there was an article during the election suggesting you could tell the difference between Trump and his handlers tweeting by the way the tweets were worded, so he probably isn't alone.

noobermin 7y ago

I'm not a famous person, but from what I can tell, the pile ons get tiring and a human can only take so much.

zimpenfish 7y ago
I think if you run for POTUS, you're explicitly acknowledging that there will be constant public criticism etc. and that you do accept those as part of the job. You can't say "X is fit to be (effective) Leader of the Free World but can't deal with their own Twitter account" (which is, by their own doing, extremely controversial.)