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Propaganda doesn’t need to be explicit; it’s clear the intent of these messages, just like the veiled messaging in his incitement speech. It’s clear that once

by louthy 6y ago

Propaganda doesn’t need to be explicit; it’s clear the intent of these messages, just like the veiled messaging in his incitement speech. It’s clear that once something like a violent insurrection happens the companies previously giving a platform to the one who incited the insurrection are going to give a lot less leeway on anything he says. Seems odd that this is seemingly hard to understand. If the violence didn’t happen, and he wrote those two tweets he’d still be on Twitter. But it did happen and that’s changed the game

imgabe 6y ago
You can say anything is a coded message and claim it means whatever you want. The tweet that prompted the initial ban literally said "go home and be peaceful". That is supposed to be an incitement to violence? Lots of violence happened during the protests this summer too. Should we assume that everyone tweeting about being peaceful then was also sending coded messages supporting the violence? Are we really going to go with the logic that violence occurred, therefore anything tweeted prior to the violence was an incitement to the violence? And if it appeared to say the opposite of that, then it was actually a coded message that means whatever is politically convenient for us to have it mean?
- louthy 6y ago
  You can keep claiming it’s one tweet if you like, but you know this is disingenuous. It’s 1 tweet + 4 years of destabilising lies + 1 incitement to insurrection Propaganda over the ages has been studied very closely, there are known techniques. His incitement speech was a textbook example [1]. Why on earth would anyone give him the benefit of the doubt? He’s a wannabe tyrant. [1] https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680 https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680 - A good deep dive on his incitement speech
  - drewmol 6y ago
    >You can keep claiming it’s one tweet if you like, but you know this is disingenuous. It’s 1 tweet + 4 years of destabilising lies + 1 incitement to insurrection. >Why on earth would anyone give him the benefit of the doubt? OM F*cking God! Sorry for the outburst HN! He's the democratically elected commander in chief of the modern free world - like it or not. We comment here to hear other people's comments back. Read the guidelines. Trump is not subject to HN guidelines unless he comments on here, but Twitter is struggling to maintain user trust in their convictions following an unbelievable narative, their reaction to it, among others phenomenon. Side note: 'Users' are not friends nor loyalists.
    - louthy 6y ago
      How does your outburst relate to my comment? What obligation does twitter have to give anybody a voice? Especially a voice that has incited a violent insurrection. I don't see how Twitter are struggling to maintain user trust, except for those that believe violent insurrection is a good thing.
      - drewmol 6y ago
        The outburst was a reaction to the question of why people would give him the benifit of the doubt. He was entrusted (non violently, but begrudgingly by some Americans) with the ability to command the United States' nuclear arsenal. Violent insurrection is how the republic that governs the people who operate Twitter was started, there can be good parts of it. I don't trust that Trump incited the violence, nor that it's a good idea to blame him and dismiss objection.
        louthy 6y ago
        > Violent insurrection is how the republic that governs the people who operate Twitter was started, there can be good parts of it So you're comparing the insurrection that happened last week, in a mature, functioning democracy to the overthrow of rule-from-afar by a king? Are you sure that a violent insurrection in America, today, could be a good thing? An insurrection is usually to replace the embedded status quo. What should democracy be replaced with that's better? Do you believe totalitarianism/fascism is really a better system? Because that appears to be Trump's preferred system of government. > I don't trust that Trump incited the violence He staged a rally called the "Save America March" with a speech loaded with violent imagery and threats to "weak republicans" with phrases like "We have someone in there who should not be in there and our country will be destroyed and we're not going to stand for that" with repeated phrases like "fight like hell", giving the impression that there were similar marches around the country, etc. etc. all carefully crafted to make it seem like today was the day that, if the mob didn't do something about it, they would lose democracy itself. Making it appear that the election was still ongoing, putting it in the present tense, and that in 1 hour's time, it would all be over. He even laid out plans for what he would do in office going forward, like a State of the Union speech. It was all timed to finish 45 minutes before the electoral college votes were due to be counted. This was after Guiliani had called for "trial by combat". If you haven't seen the full transcript of his speech, I would encourage you to dig it out. The incitement is absolutely plain as day. It's textbook propaganda and was designed to rile up the crowd to believe they, the "real Americans" (like Hitler's "real Germans"), could stop what he was decrying as a fraudulent election. I get it that if you're a Trump fan or a Republican, you may be willing to give more of a benefit of the doubt. But to a non-partisan (I'm not American, but deeply concerned by what I can see from my part of the world) it's plain as day.
- TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
  We're going to go with the logic - and evidence - that Trump has been doing this for years. Even before he was president he was threatening violence if he didn't win the nomination. [1] So it is spectacularly, flagrantly, and most of all utterly unconvincing to suggest that he - I don't know - misspoke? Didn't mean it? Was widely and unfortunately misinterpreted by an angry crowd he just happened find himself in front of with kindness and good will to all men in his heart? None of that is even remotely plausible. Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, etc are perfectly justified in shutting him up, for the safety of all Americans, and very possibly the rest of the world. Once we've dealt with this threat, we can come back and have a debate about media control in all of its forms. And when we do that we can include the trad media too, because they have a lot to answer for. But for now there are more pressing problems. Whether or not Twitter did the right thing isn't anywhere close to the top of the list. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-warns-supporters-may-riot-fears-violence-escalate-n540516 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-warns-s...
  - imgabe 6y ago
    Sure, once we've won the War on Terror, you'll be able to get on a plane without taking your shoes off again and we'll shut down the NSA program to spy on everyone. Once we end the scourge of drugs, we'll restore your 4th amendment rights and end civil forfeiture. The people who take your away your rights to bolster their own political power have always been very conscientious about giving them back later.
    - louthy 6y ago
      Conflating multi decade long concerns with the remaining few days of a presidential term is hardly a useful comparison. A tech company banning a user isn’t equivalent to a new law on the statute either.
      - imgabe 6y ago
        Multi-decade concerns start out as immediate concerns. If you only care about freedom when it's easy and convenient to protect, you just plain don't care about freedom.
swordsmith 6y ago
You claim it's clear, yet the majority of protestors that showed up in DC DID NOT storm the capitol. How is it it's clear to so many people on the left that Trump was inciting violence, when that wasn't the case for most of his supporters?

by louthy 6y ago

imgabe 6y ago

You can say anything is a coded message and claim it means whatever you want. The tweet that prompted the initial ban literally said "go home and be peaceful". That is supposed to be an incitement to violence? Lots of violence happened during the protests this summer too. Should we assume that everyone tweeting about being peaceful then was also sending coded messages supporting the violence? Are we really going to go with the logic that violence occurred, therefore anything tweeted prior to the violence was an incitement to the violence? And if it appeared to say the opposite of that, then it was actually a coded message that means whatever is politically convenient for us to have it mean?

louthy 6y ago
You can keep claiming it’s one tweet if you like, but you know this is disingenuous. It’s 1 tweet + 4 years of destabilising lies + 1 incitement to insurrection Propaganda over the ages has been studied very closely, there are known techniques. His incitement speech was a textbook example [1]. Why on earth would anyone give him the benefit of the doubt? He’s a wannabe tyrant. [1] https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680 https://twitter.com/sethabramson/status/1347908845281095680 - A good deep dive on his incitement speech
- drewmol 6y ago
  >You can keep claiming it’s one tweet if you like, but you know this is disingenuous. It’s 1 tweet + 4 years of destabilising lies + 1 incitement to insurrection. >Why on earth would anyone give him the benefit of the doubt? OM F*cking God! Sorry for the outburst HN! He's the democratically elected commander in chief of the modern free world - like it or not. We comment here to hear other people's comments back. Read the guidelines. Trump is not subject to HN guidelines unless he comments on here, but Twitter is struggling to maintain user trust in their convictions following an unbelievable narative, their reaction to it, among others phenomenon. Side note: 'Users' are not friends nor loyalists.
  - louthy 6y ago
    How does your outburst relate to my comment? What obligation does twitter have to give anybody a voice? Especially a voice that has incited a violent insurrection. I don't see how Twitter are struggling to maintain user trust, except for those that believe violent insurrection is a good thing.
    - drewmol 6y ago
      The outburst was a reaction to the question of why people would give him the benifit of the doubt. He was entrusted (non violently, but begrudgingly by some Americans) with the ability to command the United States' nuclear arsenal. Violent insurrection is how the republic that governs the people who operate Twitter was started, there can be good parts of it. I don't trust that Trump incited the violence, nor that it's a good idea to blame him and dismiss objection.
      - louthy 6y ago
        > Violent insurrection is how the republic that governs the people who operate Twitter was started, there can be good parts of it So you're comparing the insurrection that happened last week, in a mature, functioning democracy to the overthrow of rule-from-afar by a king? Are you sure that a violent insurrection in America, today, could be a good thing? An insurrection is usually to replace the embedded status quo. What should democracy be replaced with that's better? Do you believe totalitarianism/fascism is really a better system? Because that appears to be Trump's preferred system of government. > I don't trust that Trump incited the violence He staged a rally called the "Save America March" with a speech loaded with violent imagery and threats to "weak republicans" with phrases like "We have someone in there who should not be in there and our country will be destroyed and we're not going to stand for that" with repeated phrases like "fight like hell", giving the impression that there were similar marches around the country, etc. etc. all carefully crafted to make it seem like today was the day that, if the mob didn't do something about it, they would lose democracy itself. Making it appear that the election was still ongoing, putting it in the present tense, and that in 1 hour's time, it would all be over. He even laid out plans for what he would do in office going forward, like a State of the Union speech. It was all timed to finish 45 minutes before the electoral college votes were due to be counted. This was after Guiliani had called for "trial by combat". If you haven't seen the full transcript of his speech, I would encourage you to dig it out. The incitement is absolutely plain as day. It's textbook propaganda and was designed to rile up the crowd to believe they, the "real Americans" (like Hitler's "real Germans"), could stop what he was decrying as a fraudulent election. I get it that if you're a Trump fan or a Republican, you may be willing to give more of a benefit of the doubt. But to a non-partisan (I'm not American, but deeply concerned by what I can see from my part of the world) it's plain as day.
TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
We're going to go with the logic - and evidence - that Trump has been doing this for years. Even before he was president he was threatening violence if he didn't win the nomination. [1] So it is spectacularly, flagrantly, and most of all utterly unconvincing to suggest that he - I don't know - misspoke? Didn't mean it? Was widely and unfortunately misinterpreted by an angry crowd he just happened find himself in front of with kindness and good will to all men in his heart? None of that is even remotely plausible. Twitter, Amazon, Facebook, etc are perfectly justified in shutting him up, for the safety of all Americans, and very possibly the rest of the world. Once we've dealt with this threat, we can come back and have a debate about media control in all of its forms. And when we do that we can include the trad media too, because they have a lot to answer for. But for now there are more pressing problems. Whether or not Twitter did the right thing isn't anywhere close to the top of the list. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-warns-supporters-may-riot-fears-violence-escalate-n540516 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016-election/trump-warns-s...
- imgabe 6y ago
  Sure, once we've won the War on Terror, you'll be able to get on a plane without taking your shoes off again and we'll shut down the NSA program to spy on everyone. Once we end the scourge of drugs, we'll restore your 4th amendment rights and end civil forfeiture. The people who take your away your rights to bolster their own political power have always been very conscientious about giving them back later.
  - louthy 6y ago
    Conflating multi decade long concerns with the remaining few days of a presidential term is hardly a useful comparison. A tech company banning a user isn’t equivalent to a new law on the statute either.
    - imgabe 6y ago
      Multi-decade concerns start out as immediate concerns. If you only care about freedom when it's easy and convenient to protect, you just plain don't care about freedom.

swordsmith 6y ago

You claim it's clear, yet the majority of protestors that showed up in DC DID NOT storm the capitol. How is it it's clear to so many people on the left that Trump was inciting violence, when that wasn't the case for most of his supporters?