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It's pretty obvious that DT is not going to shut down the very platforms he relies on for his political survival. Even he's not that stupid. Nor does he have an

It's pretty obvious that DT is not going to shut down the very platforms he relies on for his political survival. Even he's not that stupid. Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that could be employed that wouldn't also bite him back. So this is just him trying to bully the platforms into letting him say whatever without being exposed to any criticism or being called out for bullshit.

ojnabieoot 6y ago
The salient comparison is Bezos and WaPo. Even if Trump can’t attack a newspaper directly, he can (and has) attacked other business ventures to try to force censorship - hit AWS hard enough that Bezos interfere with his newspaper to get Trump off his back. Given yesterday’s WSJ story about Facebook, it seems to be working. One tactic I think is likely to come from Barr and the DOJ is a corrupt selective enforcement of anti-trust laws - decide Twitter and AWS are monopolies but Facebook and Microsoft are not.
- dathinab 6y ago
  Twitter being a monopoly but Facebook not would be totally ridiculous in more than one way. EDIT: Just to be clear I'm not saying your post is ridiculous, but Trump is. And yes the following is somewhat sarcasm END EDIT. Let me guess next Mercedes and BMW have a oligopol on cars and china will be classified as a company with an monopol on cheap products. The crazy/scary think is that I believe Trump would totally cable of doing it if he get's the legal power and time to do so...
dathinab 6y ago
Sure, but such bullying is rather dangerous. Normally such threads come from people which are somewhat in the process or trying to de-mantel a democracy. So a US president saying something like that is quite worrying even if his intentions are not to undermine the US democracy.
- techntoke 6y ago
  That is exactly his intentions. He is an idiot for using Twitter in the first place. He should have been advocating for a decentralized Internet where his followers could live in a bubble catered to them.
  - seph-reed 6y ago
    Holy fuck A+! Almost every time I hear people call Trump stupid, I cringe a bit expecting them to follow it up with examples of their inability to deal with trolls and "why can't everyone get along." I really wish everyone could get along, but life isn't so sweet yet. What you suggested was a better way to troll, thereby proving you understand the shit bag, and his game. You are legitimately smarter than Trump at his own game, and that is something I've seen pretty much nowhere. Thank you so much for existing.
  - mcintyre1994 6y ago
    Aren't the algorithms probably better at curating that bubble than people would be themselves though? If I started using Twitter and I followed Trump, a few people posting weird pro-Trump memes about him at the top of the comments on his tweets, and pro-Trump media, wouldn't the algorithm curate me a pretty nice bubble feed? Twitter always spam my feed with random things people I follow liked/replied to, surely they'd do the same for people with that sort of account too?
- cryptonector 6y ago
  There's bullying and there's bullying. Some Presidents have used the IRS against their opponents. If this President uses only rhetoric, then I'm fine with that. Also, pushing rule-making authority at the FCC or FTC is not over the line the way using the IRS is.
root_axis 6y ago
DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door. > Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that could be employed that wouldn't also bite him back I'm not convinced of that. Trump has repeatedly shown he is willing to exercise executive authority to the fullest extent possible and the courts have repeatedly affirmed his ability to do so. I'm not sure what kind of "bite back" you expect, but that kind of thing has never been an obstacle for Trump. At the end of the day I think you're right that he's bullying them, but I think it's wrong to believe that he won't actually go after them if they do not comply with his demands or at the very least retract the fact-check and praise him
- astronautjones 6y ago
  > DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door. they wouldn't, and even if they did it would be a helpful change. society's legitimization of twitter (a brand whose logo is on so many unrelated products, billboards, flyers, advertisements etc) is what makes his disinformation on that platform dangerous. if he's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect. people made the same threat about alex jones, and deplatforming him was absolutely a positive for society.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    > they wouldn't I mean the influencers would never voluntarily cede a legion of followers but they'd absolutely and vocally support Trump if he moved to a different platform and all his fans would create accounts on that new platform if they didn't have one already. > society's legitimization of twitter... We're in complete agreement there, it's a tough cultural problem, not sure how we solve it without just teaching the next generation to be highly skeptical of social media platforms. > he's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect I don't think it makes much difference, it costs nothing to just "exist" on twitter even if you engage primarily on a different platform, twitter would just become one of many targeted dumping grounds for all the crap they cook up in the silo. Honestly I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, but I think it's their next logical step, something like a mainstream 4chan.

ojnabieoot 6y ago

The salient comparison is Bezos and WaPo. Even if Trump can’t attack a newspaper directly, he can (and has) attacked other business ventures to try to force censorship - hit AWS hard enough that Bezos interfere with his newspaper to get Trump off his back. Given yesterday’s WSJ story about Facebook, it seems to be working. One tactic I think is likely to come from Barr and the DOJ is a corrupt selective enforcement of anti-trust laws - decide Twitter and AWS are monopolies but Facebook and Microsoft are not.

dathinab 6y ago
Twitter being a monopoly but Facebook not would be totally ridiculous in more than one way. EDIT: Just to be clear I'm not saying your post is ridiculous, but Trump is. And yes the following is somewhat sarcasm END EDIT. Let me guess next Mercedes and BMW have a oligopol on cars and china will be classified as a company with an monopol on cheap products. The crazy/scary think is that I believe Trump would totally cable of doing it if he get's the legal power and time to do so...

dathinab 6y ago

Sure, but such bullying is rather dangerous. Normally such threads come from people which are somewhat in the process or trying to de-mantel a democracy. So a US president saying something like that is quite worrying even if his intentions are not to undermine the US democracy.

techntoke 6y ago
That is exactly his intentions. He is an idiot for using Twitter in the first place. He should have been advocating for a decentralized Internet where his followers could live in a bubble catered to them.
- seph-reed 6y ago
  Holy fuck A+! Almost every time I hear people call Trump stupid, I cringe a bit expecting them to follow it up with examples of their inability to deal with trolls and "why can't everyone get along." I really wish everyone could get along, but life isn't so sweet yet. What you suggested was a better way to troll, thereby proving you understand the shit bag, and his game. You are legitimately smarter than Trump at his own game, and that is something I've seen pretty much nowhere. Thank you so much for existing.
- mcintyre1994 6y ago
  Aren't the algorithms probably better at curating that bubble than people would be themselves though? If I started using Twitter and I followed Trump, a few people posting weird pro-Trump memes about him at the top of the comments on his tweets, and pro-Trump media, wouldn't the algorithm curate me a pretty nice bubble feed? Twitter always spam my feed with random things people I follow liked/replied to, surely they'd do the same for people with that sort of account too?
cryptonector 6y ago
There's bullying and there's bullying. Some Presidents have used the IRS against their opponents. If this President uses only rhetoric, then I'm fine with that. Also, pushing rule-making authority at the FCC or FTC is not over the line the way using the IRS is.

root_axis 6y ago

DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door. > Nor does he have any real regulatory authority that could be employed that wouldn't also bite him back I'm not convinced of that. Trump has repeatedly shown he is willing to exercise executive authority to the fullest extent possible and the courts have repeatedly affirmed his ability to do so. I'm not sure what kind of "bite back" you expect, but that kind of thing has never been an obstacle for Trump. At the end of the day I think you're right that he's bullying them, but I think it's wrong to believe that he won't actually go after them if they do not comply with his demands or at the very least retract the fact-check and praise him

astronautjones 6y ago
> DT doesn't "rely on twitter for his political survival", any platform he goes to all his supporters would happily follow while gleefully trashing twitter on their way out the door. they wouldn't, and even if they did it would be a helpful change. society's legitimization of twitter (a brand whose logo is on so many unrelated products, billboards, flyers, advertisements etc) is what makes his disinformation on that platform dangerous. if he's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect. people made the same threat about alex jones, and deplatforming him was absolutely a positive for society.
- root_axis 6y ago
  > they wouldn't I mean the influencers would never voluntarily cede a legion of followers but they'd absolutely and vocally support Trump if he moved to a different platform and all his fans would create accounts on that new platform if they didn't have one already. > society's legitimization of twitter... We're in complete agreement there, it's a tough cultural problem, not sure how we solve it without just teaching the next generation to be highly skeptical of social media platforms. > he's siloed to somewhere that is obviously just for his supporters, it will have far less of a dangerous effect I don't think it makes much difference, it costs nothing to just "exist" on twitter even if you engage primarily on a different platform, twitter would just become one of many targeted dumping grounds for all the crap they cook up in the silo. Honestly I'm surprised it hasn't happened already, but I think it's their next logical step, something like a mainstream 4chan.