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Making threats to use your power as commander-in-chief against the free speech of a private company is not "trolling" or "negotiation", it's creating a chilling

by paulgb 6y ago

Making threats to use your power as commander-in-chief against the free speech of a private company is not "trolling" or "negotiation", it's creating a chilling effect on speech whether he goes through with it or not. I doubt he would shut Twitter down (if only because he needs it more than it needs him), but I don't doubt for a second that he would use the executive branch to retaliate against them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

timsneath 6y ago
To add to that, Twitter shares dropped significantly on opening and ended the day down -2.75%. By contrast, the S&P rose 1.5% today. In the absence of other confounding variables, this would suggest investors see a material effect of his words.
- nwienert 6y ago
  I dropped Twitter stock not because I think they will be regulated (they may) but because I think this was just a stupid move, and shows they aren’t making good business decisions.
  - paulgb 6y ago
    > shows they aren’t making good business decisions. I mean, I could have told you that when the already part-time CEO announced he'd move to Africa for a year :)
    - echelon 6y ago
      Africa is going to be the next {China, India, Vietnam, ...} in terms of manufacturing, industrial growth, smart phone and payments penetration, etc. Dorsey is being incredibly smart by trying to figure out how to break into the African market. He probably wants to do payments there. Get in early, win the market. It's genius. Just look at what's happening with Belt and Road. Africa is going to be huge. If I had his money and influence, I would be doing the same.
  - 2019-nCoV 6y ago
    They excel at bad decisions. This person is the “head of site integrity” at Twitter: https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1265457578215124995 https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...
- simonsarris 6y ago
  That's silly, compare TWTR to other small cap tech and its pretty much in-line for the day (eg, PINS, CHWY, SHOP). It's also fairly in line for QQQ. There's no evidence that trump's tweet changed anything about Twitter's price movement today.
nwienert 6y ago
I don’t see a chilling effect. If anything it’s a heating and dividing effect, but certainly this isn’t making people quieter about the debate.. see this comment thread for proof.
- lazugod 6y ago
  It's not chilling random Internet commentators. It's chilling actions by large platforms to have or keep any principles.
- bananabreakfast 6y ago
  This has nothing to do with people and their debate. This is a direct threat to a company to violate their free speech which, in itself, is a crime not unlike directly threatening violence against a person.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    It’s a threat to regulate them as a public utility certainly, but that’s been done before to phone companies (by the left) in the past. It’s definitely a threat. But I don’t see any people backing down, and using “chilling” to me is just pathos to try and make one side seem right. It’s a disagreement on what to do and how to run our big platforms.
    - Nevermark 6y ago
      Trump didn’t just disagree with Twitter’s opinion of his tweets, or how Twitter operates. He made threats to retaliate, clearly to chill speech he disagrees with. They are not the same thing. Not even close. And businesses will have to take his behavior into account, especially if some people give him a pass for this. Trump keeps moving the bar, or trying to, in terms of pushing back against any organizational or legal limits on himself. It has been both amazing and depressing to see how quickly people start making excuses for him, and declaring his behavior acceptable when it is clearly corruption.
briefcomment 6y ago
That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that he's telling Twitter to "cut their crap". I would bet about half the country sees it that way, and agrees with him too.
nogabebop23 6y ago
wait for tomorrow - he's already moving in this direction. THese are very concerning times...

by paulgb 6y ago

timsneath 6y ago

To add to that, Twitter shares dropped significantly on opening and ended the day down -2.75%. By contrast, the S&P rose 1.5% today. In the absence of other confounding variables, this would suggest investors see a material effect of his words.

nwienert 6y ago
I dropped Twitter stock not because I think they will be regulated (they may) but because I think this was just a stupid move, and shows they aren’t making good business decisions.
- paulgb 6y ago
  > shows they aren’t making good business decisions. I mean, I could have told you that when the already part-time CEO announced he'd move to Africa for a year :)
  - echelon 6y ago
    Africa is going to be the next {China, India, Vietnam, ...} in terms of manufacturing, industrial growth, smart phone and payments penetration, etc. Dorsey is being incredibly smart by trying to figure out how to break into the African market. He probably wants to do payments there. Get in early, win the market. It's genius. Just look at what's happening with Belt and Road. Africa is going to be huge. If I had his money and influence, I would be doing the same.
- 2019-nCoV 6y ago
  They excel at bad decisions. This person is the “head of site integrity” at Twitter: https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/1265457578215124995 https://twitter.com/LevineJonathan/status/126545757821512499...
simonsarris 6y ago
That's silly, compare TWTR to other small cap tech and its pretty much in-line for the day (eg, PINS, CHWY, SHOP). It's also fairly in line for QQQ. There's no evidence that trump's tweet changed anything about Twitter's price movement today.

nwienert 6y ago

I don’t see a chilling effect. If anything it’s a heating and dividing effect, but certainly this isn’t making people quieter about the debate.. see this comment thread for proof.

lazugod 6y ago
It's not chilling random Internet commentators. It's chilling actions by large platforms to have or keep any principles.
bananabreakfast 6y ago
This has nothing to do with people and their debate. This is a direct threat to a company to violate their free speech which, in itself, is a crime not unlike directly threatening violence against a person.
- nwienert 6y ago
  It’s a threat to regulate them as a public utility certainly, but that’s been done before to phone companies (by the left) in the past. It’s definitely a threat. But I don’t see any people backing down, and using “chilling” to me is just pathos to try and make one side seem right. It’s a disagreement on what to do and how to run our big platforms.
  - Nevermark 6y ago
    Trump didn’t just disagree with Twitter’s opinion of his tweets, or how Twitter operates. He made threats to retaliate, clearly to chill speech he disagrees with. They are not the same thing. Not even close. And businesses will have to take his behavior into account, especially if some people give him a pass for this. Trump keeps moving the bar, or trying to, in terms of pushing back against any organizational or legal limits on himself. It has been both amazing and depressing to see how quickly people start making excuses for him, and declaring his behavior acceptable when it is clearly corruption.

briefcomment 6y ago

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that he's telling Twitter to "cut their crap". I would bet about half the country sees it that way, and agrees with him too.

nogabebop23 6y ago

wait for tomorrow - he's already moving in this direction. THese are very concerning times...