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I don’t care what side your politics are. When corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country (one who has genuine legitimate s

I don’t care what side your politics are. When corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country (one who has genuine legitimate support or about half of the country), I become very scared for the future. Corporations should not have more power than the elected officials.

beezle 6y ago
There is nothing to prevent any politician from doing what was done before Twitter/FB - holding a press conference and inviting the press/TV. Or putting out public statements which are widely disseminated over news/pr wires.
- zadokshi 6y ago
  Yes and anyone can make a website. I was referring to using the platform normal people use here.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    Then there's not much concern with the Twitter ban, since the vast majority of Americans don't use it. The platform most used by normal people is Youtube, where Trump is not banned.
- michaelsbradley 6y ago
  That's a good point. I'm a little surprised a blog hasn't already sprung up on whitehouse.gov.
  - yoav 6y ago
    There’s literally no one left in the room with him who’s able or willing to suggest or execute on this idea.
bobbobb54444 6y ago
Don’t waste your time here, half these people work for the tech giants responsible for the censorship.
ergocoder 6y ago
Not sure why you are downvoted. You raised a legit point. Facebook and Twitter are important communication channels for the public. It's dangerous that they can ban any elected official without going through any single legal process. No judge. No jury. What we are doing here is a screaming match. Who can scream at Facebook/Twitter the loudest probably wins. This is going to turn into threats on FB/Twitter execs very quickly. You'll see. Why can't we have a due process for banning elected officials?
- bebopcowboy 6y ago
  He’s downvoted because this website’s users and it’s mod team are employed by the companies that the ACLU is condemning.
- yoav 6y ago
  Because Twitter/Facebook is private property and has no obligation to provide a platform for someone to overthrow democracy and incite more violence.
  - ergocoder 6y ago
    I'm not familiar with the situation. That's why I ask for a due process like what we have with our justice system. You and I are free to criticize FB and Twitter. As I mention, now it depends on who screams the loudest. Let me get this right. You are against having a due process for banning elected leaders from a popular communication channel? You prefer we scream at each other until one wins? Really?
    - yoav 6y ago
      I don’t understand what you’re saying regarding due process or screaming until someone wins? Who’s screaming? A person was using a privately owned website to encourage people to go commit acts of violence against senators and congress representatives. That website did not want to be complicit in that violence so they removed access to those people. Eg. If you go into a coffee shop and start smashing windows and beating people up and rallying for people to murder each other the coffee shop doesn’t need “due process” to kick you out and ban you. There are laws that exist and twitter has a terms of service. There’s no due process needed. If anything Twitter should be criticized for not banning Trump sooner. They let him do so much damage and allowed it to get to this point for ad revenue and engagement. I’m glad they finally did something but frustrated they allowed it to get to this.
neither_color 6y ago
I wont be surprised if all other world leaders, authoritarian or not, are looking for alternative platforms now, just for the sake of their own sovereignty.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  What would they suddenly care now?
yoav 6y ago
When the elected leader of a country can so easily try to overthrow that very same democracy with a violent insurrection the least of the consequences they should face is not being able to incite more violence on someone else’s private property. No matter how popular a hangout spot that private property.
- zadokshi 6y ago
  No one is worried about a mentally deranged guy running around in a costume taking over the legitimately elected government. No one is actually worried about this; The democrats are not actually worried about this; Republicans are not worried about this; perhaps some mentally unstable people are worried about this?
  - krapp 6y ago
    >No one is worried about a mentally deranged guy running around in a costume taking over the legitimately elected government No, because that's not something that could actually ever have happened. Nothing that crowd could have done, or was planning to do, would have actually resulted in any of them "taking over" the government, that's not how this works. That asshole in the buffalo costume got his two minutes of internet fame and then got arrested.
    - zepto 6y ago
      That doesn’t seem at all obvious. There were guys with zipties looking for elected representatives, and the electoral college votes could easily have been seized and destroyed. With hostages, a siege could easily have played out. What would Trump have done in that situation?
      - username90 6y ago
        Worst case a few politicians and a lot of the "rebels" would have gotten killed. Basically nobody wants to die for trump, there is no risk of a huge armed uprising. It would have been a tragedy but on a grander scale it wouldn't matter, it would be like just another school shooting.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dragonwriter 6y ago
> When corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country They don't control his voice. They just control if their resources are used to magnify his voice. The alternative is state-directed media where the leader directs what political messages must be relayed and private parties have no choice about whether to relay them. That's not only inconsistent with the First Amendment, it tends to work out badly.
- zadokshi 6y ago
  Yes, that's what I just said. When corporations that are used by the general public for public communication are allowed to control the voice of elected officials, we have a serious problem. A state controlled twitter is an interesting suggestion. I am not sure that's a better situation.
  - alisonkisk 6y ago
    You said the opposite.
- nicodjimenez 6y ago
  This is intellectual dishonesty. The alternative is that the government protects the liberties of its people and protect against the tyranny of the majority. PS Facebook Twitter Google Amazon Apple ARE the state media at this point. For now!
tonystubblebine 6y ago
> corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country I see this almost in reverse, that why on earth has the US Federal Government put a company like Twitter in this position? The Feds have their own communication apparatus and instead foisted onto Twitter the responsibility of being the primary communication channel of the president. He has other options but he fully embraced Twitter and despite profiting from it, it's also not entirely fair to them. Same with the Russian disinformation. There is a ton of state sponsored fake Twitter bots that the Twitter staff is fighting constantly. Why is that on them? Shouldn't the Federal government be fighting that as part of protecting the country?
- watwut 6y ago
  The Feds done nothing of that sort. Donald Trump is tweeting, because he wants to tweet. Feds are simply unable to control him and it is fair to say that they should not be able to control whether president tweets or not.
  - tonystubblebine 6y ago
    Fine, I accept that's a more accurate description. But it's the same point. This is a problem of Donald Trump's creation. He foisted himself on Twitter and it's not their job to accept that at all or forever. He had and still has official channels.
ericmcer 6y ago
That is where I am at as well. People are celebrating this because the guy they banned is on the other team, but it is crazy how twitter/fb can cut the legs out from under the "leader of the free world" when needed (it was kinda justified in this case).
- Technically 6y ago
  I mean the white house is free to issue press releases. It's not like Trump has been silenced.
- epistasis 6y ago
  Nobody should be above reproach for their behavior. I would be (and was!) far more worried about our freedoms if the president inspired so much authoritarian fear that companies would not act according to the principles stated in their terms of service, that apply to everyone. We should be far more worried that Twitter gave the president a free ride for so long, violating their own standards to allow a powerful person to violate them. That's the real threat to freedom.
  - julianmarq 6y ago
    > We should be far more worried that Twitter gave the president a free ride for so long Twitter has given and continues to give people just as or even more deranged than Trump free rides. They don't care, because either a) they agree with those people or b) censoring those people could give them bad publicity and could hurt their ad revenue. Meanwhile, people like Trump get banned all the time because their politics are okay to ban according to the advertisers/investors/media/population Twitter wants to please. Trump himself stood this long because, even if the people twitter wants/needs to please hate him, his tweets made them money—even from the people who hate him, who nonetheless hang onto his every word—by virtue of being the president of the USA and thus having far more reach than the usual "right wing nutjob". Twitter waited until now to ban him because in their calculations, I presume, losing less than two weeks of money that Trump's insane stream of thoughts might give them is compensated by the good publicity of this making them look righteous in front of everyone else. Sadly it works, even here in HN everyone forgets the usual narrative of "these corporations are evil, let's break them down and/or regulate them more heavily, and, for the love of God, let's stop their sinister spying on us", and starts defending these monopolies like no tomorrow as soon as they censor/ban someone they don't like. Even if it's a completely meaningless gesture like this one.
mech422 6y ago
Then change the laws...Corporations are not public utilities. They are not obligated to provide service to anyone. Indeed, they have to police their platforms to avoid wrongful death suits, and keep advertisers happy. edit: And to be honest, this is no different then all the "Google shutdown my business for no reason" posts we see on HN. The conventional wisdom there, is "don't build your business on third party infrastructure/services. I'd think the same logic holds for politicians. Hell - they have they're own TV network (c-span) - why don't they use it more ?
ceilingcorner 6y ago
It is extremely bizarre to me to watch the left cozy up to corporations. What happened to Occupy Wall Street, Chomsky, the real counterculture?
- zepto 6y ago
  Occupy Wall Street ended because of its own dysfunction.
  - ceilingcorner 6y ago
    I don’t mean what literally happened to it, I mean what happened to the values it represented. It’s barely been a decade and now the left has done a 180 on its relationship to corps.
    - zepto 6y ago
      The values it represented were never turned into anything coherent, which is part of why it collapsed. There are many problems with corporations and capitalism to be address. Being generally ‘anti-corporate’ just isn’t useful.
    - username90 6y ago
      Big corps started hiring leftist thought leaders and pay them huge salaries, then the left aligned very quickly with those big corporations.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > It is extremely bizarre to me to watch the left cozy up to corporations. The Left opposing the Right’s efforts to commandeer corporate resources to serve right-wing political agendas and demonize (and incite violence against) those insufficiently subservient to right-wing interests against the will of the corporations involved isn't “cozying up to corporations.”
29athrowaway 6y ago
I remind you that the capitol is also full of elected officials, and the president sent a mob to attack them. That crossed a line and that's why he was banned.
gulag4nerds 6y ago
Corporations are people, my friend.
klyrs 6y ago
> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. What part of this indicates that the government has authority over who Twitter chooses to allow on its platform?
xtracto 6y ago
I don't know how is it in the USA, but in Mexico BY LAW Television Stations must give the presidency certain amount of time to speak. So, if this same situation happened in Mexico the president could easily go for 30 minutes on TV and talk his talk.

beezle 6y ago

There is nothing to prevent any politician from doing what was done before Twitter/FB - holding a press conference and inviting the press/TV. Or putting out public statements which are widely disseminated over news/pr wires.

zadokshi 6y ago
Yes and anyone can make a website. I was referring to using the platform normal people use here.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Then there's not much concern with the Twitter ban, since the vast majority of Americans don't use it. The platform most used by normal people is Youtube, where Trump is not banned.
michaelsbradley 6y ago
That's a good point. I'm a little surprised a blog hasn't already sprung up on whitehouse.gov.
- yoav 6y ago
  There’s literally no one left in the room with him who’s able or willing to suggest or execute on this idea.

bobbobb54444 6y ago

Don’t waste your time here, half these people work for the tech giants responsible for the censorship.

ergocoder 6y ago

Not sure why you are downvoted. You raised a legit point. Facebook and Twitter are important communication channels for the public. It's dangerous that they can ban any elected official without going through any single legal process. No judge. No jury. What we are doing here is a screaming match. Who can scream at Facebook/Twitter the loudest probably wins. This is going to turn into threats on FB/Twitter execs very quickly. You'll see. Why can't we have a due process for banning elected officials?

bebopcowboy 6y ago
He’s downvoted because this website’s users and it’s mod team are employed by the companies that the ACLU is condemning.
yoav 6y ago
Because Twitter/Facebook is private property and has no obligation to provide a platform for someone to overthrow democracy and incite more violence.
- ergocoder 6y ago
  I'm not familiar with the situation. That's why I ask for a due process like what we have with our justice system. You and I are free to criticize FB and Twitter. As I mention, now it depends on who screams the loudest. Let me get this right. You are against having a due process for banning elected leaders from a popular communication channel? You prefer we scream at each other until one wins? Really?
  - yoav 6y ago
    I don’t understand what you’re saying regarding due process or screaming until someone wins? Who’s screaming? A person was using a privately owned website to encourage people to go commit acts of violence against senators and congress representatives. That website did not want to be complicit in that violence so they removed access to those people. Eg. If you go into a coffee shop and start smashing windows and beating people up and rallying for people to murder each other the coffee shop doesn’t need “due process” to kick you out and ban you. There are laws that exist and twitter has a terms of service. There’s no due process needed. If anything Twitter should be criticized for not banning Trump sooner. They let him do so much damage and allowed it to get to this point for ad revenue and engagement. I’m glad they finally did something but frustrated they allowed it to get to this.

neither_color 6y ago

I wont be surprised if all other world leaders, authoritarian or not, are looking for alternative platforms now, just for the sake of their own sovereignty.

alisonkisk 6y ago
What would they suddenly care now?

yoav 6y ago

When the elected leader of a country can so easily try to overthrow that very same democracy with a violent insurrection the least of the consequences they should face is not being able to incite more violence on someone else’s private property. No matter how popular a hangout spot that private property.

zadokshi 6y ago
No one is worried about a mentally deranged guy running around in a costume taking over the legitimately elected government. No one is actually worried about this; The democrats are not actually worried about this; Republicans are not worried about this; perhaps some mentally unstable people are worried about this?
- krapp 6y ago
  >No one is worried about a mentally deranged guy running around in a costume taking over the legitimately elected government No, because that's not something that could actually ever have happened. Nothing that crowd could have done, or was planning to do, would have actually resulted in any of them "taking over" the government, that's not how this works. That asshole in the buffalo costume got his two minutes of internet fame and then got arrested.
  - zepto 6y ago
    That doesn’t seem at all obvious. There were guys with zipties looking for elected representatives, and the electoral college votes could easily have been seized and destroyed. With hostages, a siege could easily have played out. What would Trump have done in that situation?
    - username90 6y ago
      Worst case a few politicians and a lot of the "rebels" would have gotten killed. Basically nobody wants to die for trump, there is no risk of a huge armed uprising. It would have been a tragedy but on a grander scale it wouldn't matter, it would be like just another school shooting.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

dragonwriter 6y ago

> When corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country They don't control his voice. They just control if their resources are used to magnify his voice. The alternative is state-directed media where the leader directs what political messages must be relayed and private parties have no choice about whether to relay them. That's not only inconsistent with the First Amendment, it tends to work out badly.

zadokshi 6y ago
Yes, that's what I just said. When corporations that are used by the general public for public communication are allowed to control the voice of elected officials, we have a serious problem. A state controlled twitter is an interesting suggestion. I am not sure that's a better situation.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  You said the opposite.
nicodjimenez 6y ago
This is intellectual dishonesty. The alternative is that the government protects the liberties of its people and protect against the tyranny of the majority. PS Facebook Twitter Google Amazon Apple ARE the state media at this point. For now!

tonystubblebine 6y ago

> corporations can so easily control the voice of the elected leader of a country I see this almost in reverse, that why on earth has the US Federal Government put a company like Twitter in this position? The Feds have their own communication apparatus and instead foisted onto Twitter the responsibility of being the primary communication channel of the president. He has other options but he fully embraced Twitter and despite profiting from it, it's also not entirely fair to them. Same with the Russian disinformation. There is a ton of state sponsored fake Twitter bots that the Twitter staff is fighting constantly. Why is that on them? Shouldn't the Federal government be fighting that as part of protecting the country?

watwut 6y ago
The Feds done nothing of that sort. Donald Trump is tweeting, because he wants to tweet. Feds are simply unable to control him and it is fair to say that they should not be able to control whether president tweets or not.
- tonystubblebine 6y ago
  Fine, I accept that's a more accurate description. But it's the same point. This is a problem of Donald Trump's creation. He foisted himself on Twitter and it's not their job to accept that at all or forever. He had and still has official channels.

ericmcer 6y ago

That is where I am at as well. People are celebrating this because the guy they banned is on the other team, but it is crazy how twitter/fb can cut the legs out from under the "leader of the free world" when needed (it was kinda justified in this case).

Technically 6y ago
I mean the white house is free to issue press releases. It's not like Trump has been silenced.
epistasis 6y ago
Nobody should be above reproach for their behavior. I would be (and was!) far more worried about our freedoms if the president inspired so much authoritarian fear that companies would not act according to the principles stated in their terms of service, that apply to everyone. We should be far more worried that Twitter gave the president a free ride for so long, violating their own standards to allow a powerful person to violate them. That's the real threat to freedom.
- julianmarq 6y ago
  > We should be far more worried that Twitter gave the president a free ride for so long Twitter has given and continues to give people just as or even more deranged than Trump free rides. They don't care, because either a) they agree with those people or b) censoring those people could give them bad publicity and could hurt their ad revenue. Meanwhile, people like Trump get banned all the time because their politics are okay to ban according to the advertisers/investors/media/population Twitter wants to please. Trump himself stood this long because, even if the people twitter wants/needs to please hate him, his tweets made them money—even from the people who hate him, who nonetheless hang onto his every word—by virtue of being the president of the USA and thus having far more reach than the usual "right wing nutjob". Twitter waited until now to ban him because in their calculations, I presume, losing less than two weeks of money that Trump's insane stream of thoughts might give them is compensated by the good publicity of this making them look righteous in front of everyone else. Sadly it works, even here in HN everyone forgets the usual narrative of "these corporations are evil, let's break them down and/or regulate them more heavily, and, for the love of God, let's stop their sinister spying on us", and starts defending these monopolies like no tomorrow as soon as they censor/ban someone they don't like. Even if it's a completely meaningless gesture like this one.

mech422 6y ago

Then change the laws...Corporations are not public utilities. They are not obligated to provide service to anyone. Indeed, they have to police their platforms to avoid wrongful death suits, and keep advertisers happy. edit: And to be honest, this is no different then all the "Google shutdown my business for no reason" posts we see on HN. The conventional wisdom there, is "don't build your business on third party infrastructure/services. I'd think the same logic holds for politicians. Hell - they have they're own TV network (c-span) - why don't they use it more ?

ceilingcorner 6y ago

It is extremely bizarre to me to watch the left cozy up to corporations. What happened to Occupy Wall Street, Chomsky, the real counterculture?

zepto 6y ago
Occupy Wall Street ended because of its own dysfunction.
- ceilingcorner 6y ago
  I don’t mean what literally happened to it, I mean what happened to the values it represented. It’s barely been a decade and now the left has done a 180 on its relationship to corps.
  - zepto 6y ago
    The values it represented were never turned into anything coherent, which is part of why it collapsed. There are many problems with corporations and capitalism to be address. Being generally ‘anti-corporate’ just isn’t useful.
  - username90 6y ago
    Big corps started hiring leftist thought leaders and pay them huge salaries, then the left aligned very quickly with those big corporations.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> It is extremely bizarre to me to watch the left cozy up to corporations. The Left opposing the Right’s efforts to commandeer corporate resources to serve right-wing political agendas and demonize (and incite violence against) those insufficiently subservient to right-wing interests against the will of the corporations involved isn't “cozying up to corporations.”

29athrowaway 6y ago

I remind you that the capitol is also full of elected officials, and the president sent a mob to attack them. That crossed a line and that's why he was banned.

gulag4nerds 6y ago

Corporations are people, my friend.

klyrs 6y ago

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. What part of this indicates that the government has authority over who Twitter chooses to allow on its platform?

xtracto 6y ago

I don't know how is it in the USA, but in Mexico BY LAW Television Stations must give the presidency certain amount of time to speak. So, if this same situation happened in Mexico the president could easily go for 30 minutes on TV and talk his talk.