If the President (any of them) posted here at HN, and starting saying things against the site and community rules, then I would 100% hope that the moderators would "police his speak".

The President is a person, not a god. If they want to use a private platform to speak, then they have to accept that platform's rules, just like anyone else. If they don't like that platform's policy, then they can use any other platform in the world.

To those downvoting me, do you think CNN, BBC and all major news outlets should only report what Trump does, but never actually show a video of him speak to deny him a platform?

Twitter is not journalism. And as you yourself have pointed out, Trump is one of the most powerful people on earth—meaning he has at his disposal more platforms than any of us can even dream of. Twitter can no more "police his speech" than I can police all of Facebook.

What Twitter can do is decide they don't want Trump to be an active member of their community. That is not just within their legal rights; it's well within their moral rights too.

Should twitter also ban the accounts of the president of Russia and the president of China, because of their support of policies which violate human rights? (LGBT, Tibet, democracy, the list is long, pick your favorite).

What about the account of Barack Obama, who supported extra-judicial drone killings of US citizens?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/14/13577464/...

You're conflating a lot here. People think Trump should be banned from Twitter because of the inflammatory content of his tweets, not because of objectionable things he does elsewhere. Unless Barack Obama made a bunch of tweets exhorting drone strikes that I'm unaware of, the comparison you're suggesting doesn't go through.

If they're contributing to or creating an atmosphere Twitter doesn't want on their service, then yes, why not?

Twitter isn't news, it's social media. I'm perfectly okay with private organizations policing their own content, especially when hosting that content has costs.

> The fact that you suggest a private company should police his speak is insane to me.

A private company cannot and should not police the President’s speech.

However, it can and should (insofar as it does for other users) police the President’s use of that company’s platform for speech.

The alternative is systematically favoring the government against opponents in a way which makes Twitter a de facto government propaganda arm.

If Donald Trump joined a site I was in charge of and broke the rules, I'd damn well police 'his speak'. A good community manager needs to be willing to slam the hammer down on anyone who breaks the rules, regardless of whether they're a pariah within the community scraping by with nothing in real life or a government figure, celebrity or billionaire.

The fact Twitter (and a lot of other companies running community/social media sites nowadays) don't seem to have the guts to do this shows how bad they are at enforcing their own 'guidelines'.

But yeah, if Trump joined a service I was in charge of and broke the rules, he'd get punished like any other user would for doing the same thing.

Of course not. He is welcome to issue a press release and even post in on his own website - it is just that nobody reads is there, so he has to post on Twitter.

Fun aside, as being forced to house soldiers on your property is enumerated as forbidden, and that the president is the commander in chief, does that mean Twitter could kick him out based on that?

> Fun aside, as being forced to house soldiers on your property is enumerated as forbidden

If you want to take it literally, USA is not Trump's property.

Why is this insane to you? Where are you from?

From a country which lived under an authoritative regime and who knows what censorship will lead to.

Hmm I misread your comment.

Still, a private company can do whatever it wants.

Fact is, regardless, Twitter will never censor Trump or it’ll be the end of Twitter.

But still, it’s a private company that’s not FCC regulated (yet).

Sure, Twitter is currently a private company. However, it's also a major forum used in the expression of speech in our country. At what point is a public website considered a public forum?

If we have a constitutional right to free speech, and the majority of Americans use a certain website for speech, why shouldn't their constitutional rights extend onto that site?

> why shouldn't their constitutional rights extend onto that site?

Because their involvement with Twitter is at will, because Twitter is a private institution, and because privacy is scared to our freedom. But mostly perhaps because twitter has not yet been designated a common carrier by the government, which many people are suggesting. I don’t really see twitter as a good fit for that, but then again, I’m not a legal scholar or lawmaker.

I'd say it's exactly because the US is not an authoritative regime that the same rules should apply for both random nobodies and the President.