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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

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.

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.