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The President of the United States has the same venue for disseminating information as his predecessors: White House press conferences. As for the five people

The President of the United States has the same venue for disseminating information as his predecessors: White House press conferences. As for the five people you mentioned, the CEOs of the "big tech" firms, are not one entity- you've got to go well beyond the pale (as has happened in the past week) to get them all to agree that it is their company's best interest to deplatform you.

whymauri 6y ago
>The President of the United States has the same venue for disseminating information as his predecessors: White House press conferences. Pretty much. The President has had access to the bully pulpit for over a hundred years. The decision to rely so heavily on Twitter instead of traditional channels is a strategic failure of the Trump administration. Normalizing this and ceding control of presidential communications to private parties might be a lasting legacy and mistake.
- Nbox9 6y ago
  Would he have gotten so far in politics without Twitter? Trump’s style of direct communication is very powerful for maintaining the attention of a passionate base which is the source of his political power.
  - whymauri 6y ago
    I think this discounts the power of Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting. I agree it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, though.
  - geofft 6y ago
    Yes, that's the tradeoff he chose. Neither Twitter the company nor society at large is obligated to play into the game where a candidate figures pit how to make a non-traditional platform work for him and then expects help from others when it no longer works for him. You can't live by the sword and then passionately advocate pacifism when a sword is raised against you.
jrbuhl 6y ago
The press conferences require you to go through "the press". If big tech censors press they don't like, then the press conferences will only include journalists approved by big tech.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  NYT and FOX are not big tech. They are big news.
  - jrbuhl 6y ago
    Big tech can control the flow of the population to news sites (one of the reasons the two industries often fight each other). Twitter suspended NYPost account for instance. And what if tech and news industries join forces to erase someone they both don't like?
    - threatofrain 6y ago
      The Sinclair media group is one of the biggest players in US politics and basically owns the local media landscape.
rstupek 6y ago
Haven't the press switched away from at least one of his conferences? I think it would be interesting for him to try to hold a press conference to see if the broadcast media would even carry it
- evanb 6y ago
  They switch away when he begins spouting unmitigated lies, which is a responsible form of journalism.
  - ars 6y ago
    Do they? When he spouted the nonsense about "disinfectants" they didn't switch away - they made it front page news for days. Be consistent, either refuse the cover the lies, or cover all of them. Don't just cover the lies that make you look good. Or more accurately: Don't just cover the lies that get lots of outrage (AKA views), without getting "too much" outrage of course, because that gets people killed.
    - evanb 6y ago
      Yes, they do. While it took years, the falsehoods he spread during the pandemic and during the run-up to the election convinced many newsmedia outlets to cut him off. In other words, they learned. Consistency is not to be desired above all else---it is healthy to change one's mind and behavior when presented with new evidence or circumstances, which is what those outlets did.
- monkeyfacebag 6y ago
  Harder to blame "big tech" in that case! I guarantee you that if he called into Fox, his comments would be carried by every media outlet and discussed exhaustively on Twitter.
  - ars 6y ago
    Are you saying the solution is to make sure you have a large and powerful media organization on your side?
ars 6y ago
A: No he does not. The White House can talk as much as it likes, but without the press to actually disseminate the words no one will hear them. If Newspapers, TV, and YouTube (etc) all refused to carry the words what other avenue does the President have? An emergency alert to mobile phones? And B: That doesn't answer the question posed. The question is not about the President, it's about a political dissident in general.
- shadowgovt 6y ago
  The First Amendment's Freedom of the Press protections align with this outcome. It is intentional that the President isn't able to force the President to cover him. The government isn't supposed to be able to force the press on what they must say any more than it may force them on what they cannot say; these two compulsions are two sides of the same coin. It's an extraordinary circumstance when it's not in the press's best interest to report on press conferences (i.e. it's generally newsworthy information being freely handed out), and this was an extraordinary presidency.
meheleventyone 6y ago
Not just that but the President still has a presence on Twitter both through @POTUS and @WhiteHouse.
- jrbuhl 6y ago
  Twitter deleted tweets Trump posted through the POTUS account after his personal account was deleted.
  - meheleventyone 6y ago
    And what were the contents?
    - jrbuhl 6y ago
      https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1cB7iT.img?h=3006&w=1598&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1c...
sequoia 6y ago
Yes they are not one entity, and yet they all more or less simultaneously decided trump (and parler) “violate our TOS.” It’s precisely this sort of collusion, with the figleaf of “our TOS” (give me a break, these were acts of political expediency not previously unknown TOS violations that all suddenly came to light) that I find alarming. If he/parler were kicked off one or two places it wouldn’t be as scary. It’s the blackout from social network to app stores all the way down to web infrastructure that I found shocking. If it’s hard to get upset about trump/parler getting banned, just sub in your favourite political or artistic group and gauge your reaction.
tpoacher 6y ago
The problem with that of course is exactly the same as with Twitter: the press needs to a) show up in the first place, b) cover the story at all even if they do, and c) relay what was said without adding or removing context. Which, just like any other private entity, if they want to not enable violence then they don't have to do any of those points. I.e. just like twitter.

whymauri 6y ago

>The President of the United States has the same venue for disseminating information as his predecessors: White House press conferences. Pretty much. The President has had access to the bully pulpit for over a hundred years. The decision to rely so heavily on Twitter instead of traditional channels is a strategic failure of the Trump administration. Normalizing this and ceding control of presidential communications to private parties might be a lasting legacy and mistake.

Nbox9 6y ago
Would he have gotten so far in politics without Twitter? Trump’s style of direct communication is very powerful for maintaining the attention of a passionate base which is the source of his political power.
- whymauri 6y ago
  I think this discounts the power of Fox News and Sinclair Broadcasting. I agree it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem, though.
- geofft 6y ago
  Yes, that's the tradeoff he chose. Neither Twitter the company nor society at large is obligated to play into the game where a candidate figures pit how to make a non-traditional platform work for him and then expects help from others when it no longer works for him. You can't live by the sword and then passionately advocate pacifism when a sword is raised against you.

jrbuhl 6y ago

The press conferences require you to go through "the press". If big tech censors press they don't like, then the press conferences will only include journalists approved by big tech.

threatofrain 6y ago
NYT and FOX are not big tech. They are big news.
- jrbuhl 6y ago
  Big tech can control the flow of the population to news sites (one of the reasons the two industries often fight each other). Twitter suspended NYPost account for instance. And what if tech and news industries join forces to erase someone they both don't like?
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    The Sinclair media group is one of the biggest players in US politics and basically owns the local media landscape.

rstupek 6y ago

Haven't the press switched away from at least one of his conferences? I think it would be interesting for him to try to hold a press conference to see if the broadcast media would even carry it

evanb 6y ago
They switch away when he begins spouting unmitigated lies, which is a responsible form of journalism.
- ars 6y ago
  Do they? When he spouted the nonsense about "disinfectants" they didn't switch away - they made it front page news for days. Be consistent, either refuse the cover the lies, or cover all of them. Don't just cover the lies that make you look good. Or more accurately: Don't just cover the lies that get lots of outrage (AKA views), without getting "too much" outrage of course, because that gets people killed.
  - evanb 6y ago
    Yes, they do. While it took years, the falsehoods he spread during the pandemic and during the run-up to the election convinced many newsmedia outlets to cut him off. In other words, they learned. Consistency is not to be desired above all else---it is healthy to change one's mind and behavior when presented with new evidence or circumstances, which is what those outlets did.
monkeyfacebag 6y ago
Harder to blame "big tech" in that case! I guarantee you that if he called into Fox, his comments would be carried by every media outlet and discussed exhaustively on Twitter.
- ars 6y ago
  Are you saying the solution is to make sure you have a large and powerful media organization on your side?

ars 6y ago

A: No he does not. The White House can talk as much as it likes, but without the press to actually disseminate the words no one will hear them. If Newspapers, TV, and YouTube (etc) all refused to carry the words what other avenue does the President have? An emergency alert to mobile phones? And B: That doesn't answer the question posed. The question is not about the President, it's about a political dissident in general.

shadowgovt 6y ago
The First Amendment's Freedom of the Press protections align with this outcome. It is intentional that the President isn't able to force the President to cover him. The government isn't supposed to be able to force the press on what they must say any more than it may force them on what they cannot say; these two compulsions are two sides of the same coin. It's an extraordinary circumstance when it's not in the press's best interest to report on press conferences (i.e. it's generally newsworthy information being freely handed out), and this was an extraordinary presidency.

meheleventyone 6y ago

Not just that but the President still has a presence on Twitter both through @POTUS and @WhiteHouse.

jrbuhl 6y ago
Twitter deleted tweets Trump posted through the POTUS account after his personal account was deleted.
- meheleventyone 6y ago
  And what were the contents?
  - jrbuhl 6y ago
    https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1cB7iT.img?h=3006&w=1598&m=6&q=60&o=f&l=f https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1c...

sequoia 6y ago

Yes they are not one entity, and yet they all more or less simultaneously decided trump (and parler) “violate our TOS.” It’s precisely this sort of collusion, with the figleaf of “our TOS” (give me a break, these were acts of political expediency not previously unknown TOS violations that all suddenly came to light) that I find alarming. If he/parler were kicked off one or two places it wouldn’t be as scary. It’s the blackout from social network to app stores all the way down to web infrastructure that I found shocking. If it’s hard to get upset about trump/parler getting banned, just sub in your favourite political or artistic group and gauge your reaction.

tpoacher 6y ago

The problem with that of course is exactly the same as with Twitter: the press needs to a) show up in the first place, b) cover the story at all even if they do, and c) relay what was said without adding or removing context. Which, just like any other private entity, if they want to not enable violence then they don't have to do any of those points. I.e. just like twitter.