6 ms·

So we should hand over control and censorship of the President's communications to a small group of Silicon Valley engineers?

jakelazaroff 6y ago
Do you really think — if Facebook and Twitter hypothetically decided to ban him — that the President of the United States would have trouble getting a message out?
- ReticentVole 6y ago
  De-platforming is a key part of the Alt-Left's strategy of controlling opposition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming
  - jakelazaroff 6y ago
    Did you read your own link? Deplatforming has been used for decades, by the right wing as well as the left: > The University of California, for example, had a policy known as the Speaker Ban codified in university regulations under President Robert Gordon Sproul, mostly, but not exclusively, targeting Communists. One rule stated that "the University assumed the right to prevent exploitation of its prestige by unqualified persons or by those who would use it as a platform for propaganda." This rule was used in 1951 to block Max Schachtman, a socialist, from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley.
- ALittleLight 6y ago
  Yes? What's he going to do if he's kicked off social media? His reach would decline my millions or tens of millions at least.
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  - baddox 6y ago
    Television. Online and paper news. Literally beaming messages directly to the cellphones of every American.
    - ALittleLight 6y ago
      He can and does use television now. Television takes longer to setup and doesn't reach the same people. You can't go on TV to share a one sentence thought but you can easily do that on Twitter. So long as you think there's at least one person who he reaches by social media that he wouldn't reach with traditional media, it seems you are obligated to conclude that banning him from social media would reduce his reach, or in other words, trouble him getting his message out. I'm sure he could still easily get huge messages out, but would have much more trouble getting out minor messages of the kind he uses Twitter for.
      - vertex-four 6y ago
        The President of the United States could set up a Mastodon or Pleroma instance or what-have-you. It's not like Twitter and Facebook are the only entities with the ability to put short messages on the Internet. And yes, this would reduce his reach. So would a newspaper or TV channel not publishing something he said, and yet we'd be incredibly weirded out if newspapers and TV channels were required to publish every mundane thing the President sends their way.
        ALittleLight 6y ago
        Twitter and Facebook are clearly not like newspapers though. So long as you agree that it would reduce his reach, you agree with the point I've made here.
        vertex-four 6y ago
        It would reduce his reach but it would not prevent him from writing these messages and publishing them, or interested people from finding them (pretty much everyone would know they can follow @donaldtrump@whitehouse.gov from one of the free speech Mastodon instances or whatever within a day), so I don't really see what the problem is. It's just that he wouldn't be promoted by Twitter.
- thrwaway69 6y ago
  Let's just censor the protestors. Glorifying violence isn't a good thing. Fb and twitter should take a stance on it. They have roads to shout on, who needs social media?
klipt 6y ago
Aren't there official government channels for presidential communications, like the whitehouse.gov website, and state of the nation addresses? Obama managed fine without ever relying on Twitter.

jakelazaroff 6y ago

Do you really think — if Facebook and Twitter hypothetically decided to ban him — that the President of the United States would have trouble getting a message out?

ReticentVole 6y ago
De-platforming is a key part of the Alt-Left's strategy of controlling opposition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deplatforming
- jakelazaroff 6y ago
  Did you read your own link? Deplatforming has been used for decades, by the right wing as well as the left: > The University of California, for example, had a policy known as the Speaker Ban codified in university regulations under President Robert Gordon Sproul, mostly, but not exclusively, targeting Communists. One rule stated that "the University assumed the right to prevent exploitation of its prestige by unqualified persons or by those who would use it as a platform for propaganda." This rule was used in 1951 to block Max Schachtman, a socialist, from speaking at the University of California at Berkeley.
ALittleLight 6y ago
Yes? What's he going to do if he's kicked off social media? His reach would decline my millions or tens of millions at least.
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- baddox 6y ago
  Television. Online and paper news. Literally beaming messages directly to the cellphones of every American.
  - ALittleLight 6y ago
    He can and does use television now. Television takes longer to setup and doesn't reach the same people. You can't go on TV to share a one sentence thought but you can easily do that on Twitter. So long as you think there's at least one person who he reaches by social media that he wouldn't reach with traditional media, it seems you are obligated to conclude that banning him from social media would reduce his reach, or in other words, trouble him getting his message out. I'm sure he could still easily get huge messages out, but would have much more trouble getting out minor messages of the kind he uses Twitter for.
    - vertex-four 6y ago
      The President of the United States could set up a Mastodon or Pleroma instance or what-have-you. It's not like Twitter and Facebook are the only entities with the ability to put short messages on the Internet. And yes, this would reduce his reach. So would a newspaper or TV channel not publishing something he said, and yet we'd be incredibly weirded out if newspapers and TV channels were required to publish every mundane thing the President sends their way.
      - ALittleLight 6y ago
        Twitter and Facebook are clearly not like newspapers though. So long as you agree that it would reduce his reach, you agree with the point I've made here.
        vertex-four 6y ago
        It would reduce his reach but it would not prevent him from writing these messages and publishing them, or interested people from finding them (pretty much everyone would know they can follow @donaldtrump@whitehouse.gov from one of the free speech Mastodon instances or whatever within a day), so I don't really see what the problem is. It's just that he wouldn't be promoted by Twitter.
thrwaway69 6y ago
Let's just censor the protestors. Glorifying violence isn't a good thing. Fb and twitter should take a stance on it. They have roads to shout on, who needs social media?

klipt 6y ago

Aren't there official government channels for presidential communications, like the whitehouse.gov website, and state of the nation addresses? Obama managed fine without ever relying on Twitter.