8 ms·

Twitter themselves go into it in detail. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/

by jayd16 6y ago

Twitter themselves go into it in detail. https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio... Essentially, supporting a violent insurrection into the capital building was the line.

razius 6y ago
Kinda like BLM attacking federal buildings, occupying land and declaring it independent?
Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
What they quote is the tweet “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” That's what he got banned for? I don't have all the details, but it sure looks similar to the autoritarian governments and police forces locking people up because "they know they meant it". There is no appeal to violence in that tweet. Just because some nutjob can interpret anything like an appeal, doesn't mean it's an appeal. That was literally 1 of two tweets that god him banned, the first just describing a generic Trump tirade about his supporters. How can anyone honestly think this is democratic behavior to ban someone over two tweets that have no appeal to violence? I don't care about pro-trump or anti-trump, but this is political censorship.
- mkl 6y ago
  I suggest you read Twitter's whole article. It explains, and it's not what you think.
  - caffeine 6y ago
    I read Twitter's whole article, and it seems to be exactly what GP thinks. The article is full of weasel words like "can be interpreted as" or "could be taken to mean". It does not point to any single actual example of inciting violence.
  - notatrumper 6y ago
    What do you mean? What does it explain? It literally says they interpreted those sentences as incitement to violence?
- alkonaut 6y ago
  > That was literally 1 of two tweets that god him banned > two tweets A huge number of commenters here said the obvious "yes, quoting selected tweets was unfortunate when it was clearly not those particular tweets alone that was the cause". That's still true. It was useless messaging. Ignore the quoted tweets and read the rest. Or read them as (poor) examples only. There is zero way that the message from Twitter should be interpreted literally as "these two tweets only are what caused Trump to be banned". Anyone who thinks that obviously doesn't interpret their message in a charitable way.
  - Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
    I strongly believe the goal post of online censorship should be incitement of violence or obvious hatespeech. The rest will always be open to interpretation, that will depend on the biases of the censors. It seems to me this is the case here. There is nothing in his (other) tweets that incites violence. Or can you show anything? Can they do it? After all the criticism they received, they still can't produce a IoV tweets as evidence? This does not look questionable to you? A question I have is - why am I even asked to be reading twitter's thoughts about a matter, instead of actual tweets or things that the account wrote? Who is twitter? Why should I care about their opinion, who gave them right to affect opinion? Why are they supposed to have the moral authority to decipher complex situations for me and tell me how I should understand one message or another? Who elected them? What was the democratic process behind it? It is these questions that make the situation real shady, not the two tweets.
    - tptacek 6y ago
      Who is Twitter? They own and operate Twitter, and are the final arbiters for what is allowed on Twitter.
      - ButtSpark69 6y ago
        You could make a decent argument that twitter and the other social giants have more real power than most countries' governments on this planet. The whole reason we think governments shouldn't censer speech is specifically because they are so powerful, and while you may like who's in power today, good luck trying to keep it that way.
roenxi 6y ago
Their statement is quite interesting - they go rather deep into explaining how they see the situation. But the disconnect between what Trump tweeted vs. what they see bodes poorly for Twitter. Anyone who lives in a world where The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!! can only be intended as a call to violence is not in a calm state of mind. I'm expecting this document is going to be cited a lot more by right-wing commentators than left-wing ones. It is just going to be too hard to sustain that interpretation in hindsight when everyone relaxes and it is obvious that the threat here is similar to all the other protests America has shrugged off in the last however many decades.
- tptacek 6y ago
  This analysis only makes sense if you discard the context for the tweet.
  - tzs 6y ago
    The Wall Street Journal had an article [1] laying out how Trump and his allies have been setting the stage for what happened at the Capitol on the 6th. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-his-allies-set-the-stage-for-riot-well-before-january-6-11610156283 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-his-allies-set-the-st...
  - roenxi 6y ago
    People meaning what they said is a really defensible position to argue. Trump is pretty proud of the people who vote for him. Hypothetically speaking, the tension could die down over the next few weeks and the context could become a single violent protest against the background of BLM. The right wing are not known for competently organising sustained protests. There is a future here where unless something surprising happens Twitter gets a lot of egg on their face for, in a panic, ejecting a sitting president for things that are pretty banal when read literally. Twitter accepting this risk is not something that bodes well for them.
- 6y ago

by jayd16 6y ago

razius 6y ago

Kinda like BLM attacking federal buildings, occupying land and declaring it independent?

Erlich_Bachman 6y ago

What they quote is the tweet “To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.” That's what he got banned for? I don't have all the details, but it sure looks similar to the autoritarian governments and police forces locking people up because "they know they meant it". There is no appeal to violence in that tweet. Just because some nutjob can interpret anything like an appeal, doesn't mean it's an appeal. That was literally 1 of two tweets that god him banned, the first just describing a generic Trump tirade about his supporters. How can anyone honestly think this is democratic behavior to ban someone over two tweets that have no appeal to violence? I don't care about pro-trump or anti-trump, but this is political censorship.

mkl 6y ago
I suggest you read Twitter's whole article. It explains, and it's not what you think.
- caffeine 6y ago
  I read Twitter's whole article, and it seems to be exactly what GP thinks. The article is full of weasel words like "can be interpreted as" or "could be taken to mean". It does not point to any single actual example of inciting violence.
- notatrumper 6y ago
  What do you mean? What does it explain? It literally says they interpreted those sentences as incitement to violence?
alkonaut 6y ago
> That was literally 1 of two tweets that god him banned > two tweets A huge number of commenters here said the obvious "yes, quoting selected tweets was unfortunate when it was clearly not those particular tweets alone that was the cause". That's still true. It was useless messaging. Ignore the quoted tweets and read the rest. Or read them as (poor) examples only. There is zero way that the message from Twitter should be interpreted literally as "these two tweets only are what caused Trump to be banned". Anyone who thinks that obviously doesn't interpret their message in a charitable way.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y ago
  I strongly believe the goal post of online censorship should be incitement of violence or obvious hatespeech. The rest will always be open to interpretation, that will depend on the biases of the censors. It seems to me this is the case here. There is nothing in his (other) tweets that incites violence. Or can you show anything? Can they do it? After all the criticism they received, they still can't produce a IoV tweets as evidence? This does not look questionable to you? A question I have is - why am I even asked to be reading twitter's thoughts about a matter, instead of actual tweets or things that the account wrote? Who is twitter? Why should I care about their opinion, who gave them right to affect opinion? Why are they supposed to have the moral authority to decipher complex situations for me and tell me how I should understand one message or another? Who elected them? What was the democratic process behind it? It is these questions that make the situation real shady, not the two tweets.
  - tptacek 6y ago
    Who is Twitter? They own and operate Twitter, and are the final arbiters for what is allowed on Twitter.
    - ButtSpark69 6y ago
      You could make a decent argument that twitter and the other social giants have more real power than most countries' governments on this planet. The whole reason we think governments shouldn't censer speech is specifically because they are so powerful, and while you may like who's in power today, good luck trying to keep it that way.

roenxi 6y ago

Their statement is quite interesting - they go rather deep into explaining how they see the situation. But the disconnect between what Trump tweeted vs. what they see bodes poorly for Twitter. Anyone who lives in a world where The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!! can only be intended as a call to violence is not in a calm state of mind. I'm expecting this document is going to be cited a lot more by right-wing commentators than left-wing ones. It is just going to be too hard to sustain that interpretation in hindsight when everyone relaxes and it is obvious that the threat here is similar to all the other protests America has shrugged off in the last however many decades.

tptacek 6y ago
This analysis only makes sense if you discard the context for the tweet.
- tzs 6y ago
  The Wall Street Journal had an article [1] laying out how Trump and his allies have been setting the stage for what happened at the Capitol on the 6th. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-his-allies-set-the-stage-for-riot-well-before-january-6-11610156283 https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-and-his-allies-set-the-st...
- roenxi 6y ago
  People meaning what they said is a really defensible position to argue. Trump is pretty proud of the people who vote for him. Hypothetically speaking, the tension could die down over the next few weeks and the context could become a single violent protest against the background of BLM. The right wing are not known for competently organising sustained protests. There is a future here where unless something surprising happens Twitter gets a lot of egg on their face for, in a panic, ejecting a sitting president for things that are pretty banal when read literally. Twitter accepting this risk is not something that bodes well for them.
6y ago