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Remember when people said "it's only extremists like Alex Jones" and "white nationalists", yeah well now Twitter has banned the president of the United States.

by kypro 6y ago

Remember when people said "it's only extremists like Alex Jones" and "white nationalists", yeah well now Twitter has banned the president of the United States. I'm not a supporter of Trump, but I'm yet to hear him explicitly incite violence. I know he encouraged the protest at the Capitol but I've yet to see evidence that he was hoping for it to turn violent? And if he did want that why did he speak out against it? He's also repeatedly said there will be a peaceful transfer of power. Am I missing something here? I've been told I can be quite a naive person so perhaps I'm taking him at face value too much. Either way, I'd appreciate if someone could help me put my thinking right on this. Also, does this mean we can expect Biden to be removed from Twitter if tweets anything in support of BLM? I'm not comparing events here but both protest groups have had pockets of violence. I suspect he wouldn't be and that points to a bigger problem here. If you think the wrong things like the election was conducted unfairly or you disagree with lockdowns, too bad, big tech will silence you online. If you believe conspiracy theories about Russian election interference or write a book called "in defence of looting" you're fine, you might even find you'll get praise from people in the media.

iron0013 6y ago
>Remember when people said "it's only extremists like Alex Jones" and "white nationalists", yeah well now Twitter has banned the president of the United States. The president of the United States is in fact an extremist like Alex Jones and a white nationalist.
- kypro 6y ago
  Again, I want to be clear here that my defence of Trump isn't because I support him, I don't. That said, I don't know how he can be an extremist given he received such huge support from the American public twice. He's called both a populist and an extremist, which seems - at least to me - to be an oxymoron. I guess I also don't know why I should think he's a white nationalist? Could you expand on why you think that?
  - iron0013 6y ago
    lol nope smug folded hands pursed lips internet guy
    - dang 6y ago
      We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, repeated flamewar, using HN primarily for political battle, and ignoring countless requests to stop, including one less than 24 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25681963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25681963 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
- collyw 6y ago
  > The president of the United States is in fact an extremist like Alex Jones and a white nationalist. This sounds like a comment from Reddit. From an outsider perceptive (European) he seems neither an extremist nor a white nationalist. He is a nationalist for sure, but I have never heard Trump talk about people grouping them by skin colour, unlike Obama. I have only heard Trump talk about "Americans" and he divides that into the left or right.
curiousllama 6y ago
> I’m yet to hear him explicitly incite violence After a mob has killed a police officer, he said “we love you, you are patriots” ... half-hearted “go home” does not minimize a full throated “the election was stolen from us”. If people are rioting over X, and you say “wow, X is really bad!” - is that not encouragement? What, in your mind, is inciting violence? Iirc, he told supporters to punch protesters during the 2016 campaign, no?
- kypro 6y ago
  Do you think the people who were supporting BLM while condemning the violent components were encouraging violence? If not what would you say the difference is? > Iirc, he told supporters to punch protesters during the 2016 campaign, no? Yes, that would obviously be inciting violence. I hadn't heard about that. Do you have a source?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
craftinator 6y ago
I think you are naive in several of your statements, or at least your understanding of these situations has been significantly filtered. Let me break down a couple of your statements: > I've yet to see evidence that he was hoping for it to turn violent? And if he did want that why did he speak out against it? He's not going to directly tell people to go commit violence. He's going to (and did) whip up a crowd using hateful language, demonize the people who he doesn't like, and make it clear that the crowd needed to "take action". He used the common formulae of a persuasive speech, but left the call to action portion vague, so he couldn't be held directly responsible; politicians do this all of the time. > does this mean we can expect Biden to be removed from Twitter if tweets anything in support of BLM? No. The are huge differences between the people who attacked the Capitol and BLM protesters. 1) Volume: BLM actions have been widespread and ongoing. Whatever these crazy Trumpers/white supremacists/insurectionists call themselves, they've had several orders of magnitude less actions than BLM. 2) Violence: even though there have been so few Trumper protests, they've almost always had violence and in several cases, murder. There has been violence during BLM protests before, but it is so much more rare compared to the number of protests that they've had. Also, in general, BLM violence is almost always directed at property, not people, and is usually as a response, unlike what we saw at the Capitol. Has ANY police officer been killed by BLM protesters? After literally thousands of protests? I haven't heard of it happening. 3) Purpose: BLM protests are generally about ending racism, social justice, and systemic equality. These Trumpets were taking action because they wanted to overturn the results of a democratic election. With that goal, they were basically trying to end our nation as a Democratic Republic. 4) Cause: BLM started, and has persisted, because people of color continue to be disproportionately killed by police (disproportionate in the reason why they were killed, not just in terms of numbers). It's funny how blatantly justified BLM's reason for existing became while watching how the Capitol Police handled the insurectionists. The Trumpets cause is that they didn't get what they want, because we live in a democracy. So no, Biden showing support for BLM will not get him banned from Twitter, because BLM is activism in response to murderous racism, and because he has the moral compass not to try to cause the downfall of our democracy.

by kypro 6y ago

iron0013 6y ago

>Remember when people said "it's only extremists like Alex Jones" and "white nationalists", yeah well now Twitter has banned the president of the United States. The president of the United States is in fact an extremist like Alex Jones and a white nationalist.

kypro 6y ago
Again, I want to be clear here that my defence of Trump isn't because I support him, I don't. That said, I don't know how he can be an extremist given he received such huge support from the American public twice. He's called both a populist and an extremist, which seems - at least to me - to be an oxymoron. I guess I also don't know why I should think he's a white nationalist? Could you expand on why you think that?
- iron0013 6y ago
  lol nope smug folded hands pursed lips internet guy
  - dang 6y ago
    We've banned this account for repeatedly breaking the site guidelines, repeated flamewar, using HN primarily for political battle, and ignoring countless requests to stop, including one less than 24 hours ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25681963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25681963 https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comment&storyText=false&prefix=false&page=0&query=primarily%20test%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
collyw 6y ago
> The president of the United States is in fact an extremist like Alex Jones and a white nationalist. This sounds like a comment from Reddit. From an outsider perceptive (European) he seems neither an extremist nor a white nationalist. He is a nationalist for sure, but I have never heard Trump talk about people grouping them by skin colour, unlike Obama. I have only heard Trump talk about "Americans" and he divides that into the left or right.

curiousllama 6y ago

> I’m yet to hear him explicitly incite violence After a mob has killed a police officer, he said “we love you, you are patriots” ... half-hearted “go home” does not minimize a full throated “the election was stolen from us”. If people are rioting over X, and you say “wow, X is really bad!” - is that not encouragement? What, in your mind, is inciting violence? Iirc, he told supporters to punch protesters during the 2016 campaign, no?

kypro 6y ago
Do you think the people who were supporting BLM while condemning the violent components were encouraging violence? If not what would you say the difference is? > Iirc, he told supporters to punch protesters during the 2016 campaign, no? Yes, that would obviously be inciting violence. I hadn't heard about that. Do you have a source?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

craftinator 6y ago

I think you are naive in several of your statements, or at least your understanding of these situations has been significantly filtered. Let me break down a couple of your statements: > I've yet to see evidence that he was hoping for it to turn violent? And if he did want that why did he speak out against it? He's not going to directly tell people to go commit violence. He's going to (and did) whip up a crowd using hateful language, demonize the people who he doesn't like, and make it clear that the crowd needed to "take action". He used the common formulae of a persuasive speech, but left the call to action portion vague, so he couldn't be held directly responsible; politicians do this all of the time. > does this mean we can expect Biden to be removed from Twitter if tweets anything in support of BLM? No. The are huge differences between the people who attacked the Capitol and BLM protesters. 1) Volume: BLM actions have been widespread and ongoing. Whatever these crazy Trumpers/white supremacists/insurectionists call themselves, they've had several orders of magnitude less actions than BLM. 2) Violence: even though there have been so few Trumper protests, they've almost always had violence and in several cases, murder. There has been violence during BLM protests before, but it is so much more rare compared to the number of protests that they've had. Also, in general, BLM violence is almost always directed at property, not people, and is usually as a response, unlike what we saw at the Capitol. Has ANY police officer been killed by BLM protesters? After literally thousands of protests? I haven't heard of it happening. 3) Purpose: BLM protests are generally about ending racism, social justice, and systemic equality. These Trumpets were taking action because they wanted to overturn the results of a democratic election. With that goal, they were basically trying to end our nation as a Democratic Republic. 4) Cause: BLM started, and has persisted, because people of color continue to be disproportionately killed by police (disproportionate in the reason why they were killed, not just in terms of numbers). It's funny how blatantly justified BLM's reason for existing became while watching how the Capitol Police handled the insurectionists. The Trumpets cause is that they didn't get what they want, because we live in a democracy. So no, Biden showing support for BLM will not get him banned from Twitter, because BLM is activism in response to murderous racism, and because he has the moral compass not to try to cause the downfall of our democracy.