I understand this route. The President of the United States already has a gigantic platform, so it's not like he'll just go away like @nero did. This gives Twitter a chance to annotate his hate with facts, and hopefully reach his audience. Banning him just makes him a martyr, without lessening his reach.

I do wish the UI was a bit... angrier. The friendly light blue doesn't exactly scream "misinformation!"

But as they say, sunlight is the best disinfectant. Removing him from Twitter won't make him or his base any less hateful. It's a constant reminder that he needs to be removed. I think if Twitter and news organizations just started ignoring him, many people would forget how horrible he is.

I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and legitimatizes them. Didn't the Reddit folks discover that shutting down hateful subreddits prevents them from popping back up effectively? I believe this is the citation[1].

[1] http://comp.social.gatech.edu/papers/cscw18-chand-hate.pdf

Yeah but... this is the President of the United States we're talking about, not a random Reddit user. He's already been raised up and legitimized. I don't think that study applies... in fact, I don't think any study applies, since this is the first time we've ever seen this.

On the other hand, this is his personal account @realDonaldTrump, not the official @POTUS that he decided he was above of.

> I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and legitimatizes them.

Who do you believe should have final say over which person or group of people can have a platform, and who can't?

Should it be whoever owns that particular platform? Should it be the government? Should it be the court of public opinion? I've yet to see a compelling argument for deplatforming that answers this question, because what is acceptable to society has large grey areas that are constantly shifting. I think the intentions are nothing but wonderful - I'm very glad that communities like those in the report you cited, and many similar ones, no longer exist on Reddit. The problem as I see it is that censorship lowers visibility of hate speech very effectively, but if anything seems to strengthen people's convictions that they are right about what they believe. Hateful subreddits may disappear, but is that clear evidence that the people that participated in them changed their minds about what they had expressed online? I find that conclusion dubious at best.

I see this issue most strongly with conspiracy theorists, which seem to be a dime a dozen in 2020. Censorship is nothing if not evidence that what someone is saying is true - see the recent "Plandemic" viral video as a great example.

Deplatforming is, like I said, well-intentioned, but like so many "solutions" it is obsessed with the symptom of the disease, not the cause. It is based on the very old but very wrong notion that 'if only everyone believed what I believe, all the world would be at peace'. That notion is the cornerstone of religious dogma and has been the justification for religious conversion, forcible or otherwise, for millennia. There are proven ways to moderate people's beliefs through civil discourse. The issue is that it is so time consuming, unsatisfying, and thankless (not to mention that you don't get to play moral superiority games) that I'm not surprised people would rather just throw down the banhammer instead.

The point of deplatforming is not to change the minds of true believers in extremist causes, it’s to hinder their ability to recruit.

“The more you tighten your grasp, the more star systems slip through your fingers.”

Censoring the point of view of others merely lends credence to their point of view. Unless you find a way to censor them completely, you will cause more and more people to lose faith in your ideals.

Got any proof of that?

All the new alternative social networks and video sites that have cropped up and the old ones that have ben gaining in popularity is evidence that people are beginning to turn away. Ex. lbry.tv, bitchute.com, gab.com, voat.co, phuks.co, zerohedge.com

This is an expected consequence of deplatforming — once you kick them off, those people are going to go somewhere. For this argument to work, you need to show that those networks are able to grow more than they would as a community on a mainstream platform.

Networks tend to follow an exponential growth rate, so even if the same number moved to the alternative platforms, the time it would take them to grow large enough to be significant would shorten substantially.

Why would it shorten the growth period compared to mainstream platforms, where there are far more users who could join the community? Is there any evidence that this is the case?

> Why would it shorten the growth period compared to mainstream platforms, where there are far more users who could join the community?

Because networks tend to follow an exponential growth rate. The time it takes to go from 1 to 128 equals the same time it takes to go from 128 to 16384, so if you add 127, you've shortened the time for the network to grow from 1 to 16384 by half. Meanwhile, for a platform that already had 16384, subtracting 127 is a drop in the bucket.

> Is there any evidence that this is the case?

Facebook/Youtube/Twitter/et al couldn't have grown as much as they did as fast as they did unless that was the case.

Not all exponential growth is the same: x^2 and x^1.01 are both exponential. I’m asking you for evidence that the exponent is higher for niche isolated networks than it is for communities on platforms with algorithmic promotion to a massive existing userbase.

Your reply has violated our community guidelines and you have been deducted 5 points for use of the word "extremist". You have 3 points remaining before account suspension.

See how that works? Very slippery slope.

A slippery slope to what? People migrating to a website that's reasonable?

So you would rather funnel two differing views to two platforms where they can both agree with each other in an echo chamber, rather than reasonable healthy adult discussions and sharing of ideas?

Sounds very segregationist.

This isn't Nam Smokey! There are rules!

I think if the president of the US is unable to operate within the terms of service, he shouldn't get a platform.

Why is that something you're going to argue against?

Am I the only one who gives a fuck about the rules around here?

Why is the president driving around in a motorcade, has VORFAHRT everywhere, sharpshooters, AF-One and so on, while you have to wait at red lights, and being searched at airports?

/me plays AC/DC - Thunderstruck

> I disagree, giving certain folks a platform only raises them up and legitimatizes them

Despite huge deplatforming efforts over the last decade fringe views have grown to become mainstream and there is less trust between people than ever.

I would argue that misinformation via the web has only metastasized over the past decade and the deplatforming efforts have been comparatively minimal.

> the deplatforming efforts have been comparatively minimal

Compared to what?

From my perspective the tech censors are already on thin ice - I actually don’t see how they could ramp up efforts much more without facing serious opposition.

I think arguing based on outcome misses the more fundamental point. The president is a citizen. When Angela Merkel speeds she gets a ticket, and when she goes to the supermarket she stands in the queue (which she actually literally does herself regularly, in contrast to Trump I suppose).

So regardless of whether banning him is good or bad in terms of exposure or whatever, he's a user on the platform and he ought to be treated as such. If Trump wants to speak as the president with authority I assume he has the white house press department at his disposal.

Jack Dorsey has spoken about this on Joe Rogan's podcast, and he basically says that it was a judgement call where they weighed the public interest in the tweets against the violations of the tweets.

EDIT>> I dug up the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K571_jqnCpM

As part of the public, I would rather my President's tweets not be lies, half truths and flat out nastiness.

Alas, this is what The People democratically voted for; and with our current voting system, the will of us 49% who don’t want to hear it counts for nothing u_u

53.9% of us voted against Trump.

of the 58% of eligible voters who actually voted.

31.3% of the eligible population voted against Trump. 26.7% voted for him.

Implying...?

Fraud!

Exactly! He didn't win the popular vote.

The popular vote has never mattered, and Americans have never changed that, despite having a couple of centuries of ample opportunity to do so.

The whole reason there is a United States of America is because each state would get a voice in choosing the president. By only going by popularity, a few select cities decide all. If it was proposed that way, the USA would never have formed and we'd have a bunch of individual separate countries.

“The only reason we have an application is because the original developers wrote it in COBOL. Refactoring it to the realities of the world today is blasphemy!”

What is so different? Are you sure the USA would hold together if they changed the voting structure so that NY and LA ran everything?

How would that be worse than a few key districts in one or two swing states running everything? Presidential candidates can afford to ignore entire sections of the country because they don't matter.

One could at least make the argument that the population centers should have more weight because that's where most of the people are, and those cities have the greatest financial and cultural influence. But why should, say, Iowa be as important as it seems to be in every Presidential election?

Because otherwise only New York, Texas and California matter, which the framers of the Constitution decided was a bad idea.

I actually like the principle of the electoral college, it reminds me that the US is in fact, a Union of States.

The real issue I see are the rampant gerrymandering of the congressional districts, which have a far greater skewing effect on the results than the electoral college (well, technically the same because the congressional districts are identical to the electoral college).

The States are also gerrymandered, and we are stuck with it for ever. When states like Wyoming and the Dakatos were formed it was calculated based on the left/right debate of the day, slavery.

If the majority of people live in LA and NY, then that'd be reasonable, but that's not the case. If we got rid of the electoral college, rural voters would still be a substantial portion of the population. In the current system rural voters in California are being drowned out by coastal cities where as urban voters in inland states are being drowned out by rural districts.

Americans whose votes are counted in the current system have never changed that.

States representing a large majority of the US population have all passed legislation for a national popular vote, and no one doubts that a national popular vote on whether to have a national popular vote would succeed.

Nobody won >50% of the popular vote.

Who is the arbiter of truth? Jack Dorsey?

Identifying lies doesn't require perfect knowledge of all truth.

Did Dorsey clarify what he meant by public interests? That sounds like a vague distraction.

I think "preserving the words of the president" probably fits pretty squarely in the realm of public interest, even if they're blatantly false.

Removing it from the normal tweet status is separate from preserving them. They could archive them and disable replies, retweets, quotes, and so on. They could remove it from feeds. They could frame it differently.

I know for a fact my aunt mails in ballots for her husband, her father and her mother. Claiming that there is no mail-in voter fraud among 300 million Americans is quite absurd in my opinion.

I didn’t say there’s zero voter fraud. I said his tweet, which suggests that more mail in ballots will lead to “substantial fraud” is false.

That said, perhaps “unsubstantiated” is a better description.

It's a bit absurd when claims of rampant mail-in voter fraud come without evidence from a New Yorker in the District of Columbia who votes in Florida by mail.

So assuming this is true, two things.

One, why haven't you reported your aunt for voter fraud? Voter fraud is a very serious issue and it seems to me that you're letting a criminal go free. This can be easily verified by telling the government and having the three others confirm who they voted for.

For two, if she is mailing in the ballots, then is she forging their signature as well as collecting their SSNs? Or are they simply signing on the ballots themselves agreeing to the votes? In which case is that truly fraud or not? If she's forging signatures then she's also committing identity theft which is a very serious issue, one that I hope you agree deserves reporting.

Snitches get cross stitches. Don't report your family - talk to them.

I joke with my kids that it’s snitches get ditches to amp up the nonsense level.

Not really, no. That's the WH's obligation, not Twitter's.

Jack Dorsey's public interest is increasing engagement and making money. That's it.

Especially if, I would say.

That's not Twitter's job. There are people who are supposed to do this.

When you have become one of the de-facto news sources for a sizable portion of the population, it does sort of become your job.

Whether it’s good that they have become a news source or not is a valid question. But right now, they are, and I think preserving the president’s tweets seems like a pretty easily defensible decision. Even if it is also (or primarily) motivated by their own business interests.

Do you need Twitter to preserve the words of the President, though? Rephrasing, can the President’s words be preserved just as well without Twitter?

If the answer is yes then Twitter isn’t performing the civil service it claims as it is not an archival medium.

Giving him a platform in the first place is what necessitates the consequent fact checking. If they didn't distribute his lies they wouldn't need to contradict them. Many media outlets have stopped airing Trump's statements live, because doing so is essentially unethical.

And by public interest he means the valuation of his company when all the Trump fans revolt and leave twitter.

That is inevitable. Trump will one day not be president. And one day while not president he will bitch tweet in a way that dramatically and clearly violates the terms of service. Twitter will have reached its Rubicon with respect to Trump and the public interest / head of state exception they've carved out, and they'll have to make a permanent decision.

My fantasy is that the day Trump stops being president, Twitter bans him with no explanation or comment.

Why wouldn't you? Life is way too short to pass up on the opportunity to ban a president. The lulz would last centuries.

Shareholder responsibilities. I would guess that a good chunk of Twitter users are there to read and interact with the president's tweets.

I don't know that the users are directly there to interact with the pres, but Twitter certainly benefits from being the US President's megaphone.

They get mentioned in the news hundreds of times a day, and they're "the" platform for all celebs posting their thoughts.

If POTUS moves to, say, Facebook, they lose all that free advertising.

> Shareholder responsibilities

There's nothing I'd rather say on my deathbed than "I was really good for the shareholders." Seriously, life is too short. Ban the president. Go down in history. Be someone. Jack or whoever will die being nothing more than a low-tier mascot for the long dead American dream. But banning the president... it would be very literally epic.

What I really want to say on my deathbed is "I lived a great story," so IMO it's a no brainer.

What do you mean "interact"? He virtually never posts any responses, the account is close to broadcast-only. There's also no real interaction in the replies: even if you manage to scroll past the kneejerk responses and product spam thriving on controversy, what are the chances you'll find anyone to actually interact with?

By “interact with the tweets” I see as fwd, replies, sharing

How much digital ink is spent on exhaust from his tweets?

He retweets racist nonsense constantly. If you want to add "re-tweeted by the President of the United States" to your resume, you just have to keep @-tagging him with conspiracy theories about Biden, and there's a decent chance he'll take the bait.

Trump short-circuits the media gatekeepers using Twitter.

But the relationship is symbiotic. While Trump loves him some free platform, he's a big traffic draw.

So, if Twitter wants to be too uppity, Trump could, for example shift operations to Gab.

I submit that a key point here is THERE IS NO CORRECT ANSWER to the policy question.

If one engages in social media, one's feelings will be hurt.

This is no blank check to be a dick. Criticisms of Trump cheapening the office are trivially shown correct. Vote accordingly this November.

I have no idea what you're trying to prove. In any case: anti-white racism isn't the same as standard-issue anti-black racism.

Racism is more than some people not liking your particular skin color on Twitter. Being black means every police encounter is potentially lethal––see today's news, or that jogger two weeks ago for recent examples. People call the cops when you're birding in Central Park, and unless you're lucky and have a recording, they aren't going to believe you.

If, perchance, some virus starts going around, you'll find the hospitals in predominantly black neighbourhoods have less staff and equipment, and the 30% black people in your city make up 60% of the dead (Chicago, Detroit).

In other words: it's systematic, and about power. That stuff on Twitter is stupid, but it isn't equivalent.

Anti-black racism is obviously worse than anti-white racism. No rational person would argue that they're equivalent.

That does not mean that anti-white racism should be acceptable.

It's a pretty simple concept.

No rational person would argue that X racism is worse than Y racism, this kind of thinking is what makes anti-white racism perfectly acceptable hence why you don't see these accounts/tweets taken down.

Tons of people feel that X racism is worse than Y racism, and it's ridiculous to say that they are all irrational people. The reality is that no two things are perfectly equivalent, even if they are both terrible things that should both be eradicated. We should castigate all forms of racism, but that is not at odds with the reality that it is at least a legitimate opinion to claim that the practical consequences of anti-black racism, at least in the English-speaking world, are apparently worse than the practical consequences of anti-white racism.

Why don't you care about letting Trump slide, but you do care about letting anti-white racists slide?

I find his Tweets entertaining and I get a good laugh out of them. As for the anti-white thing, I'm just making an observation about something I found interesting.

I legitimately want to know what's up with Twitter allowing these comments. I find it weird cause it'd go without saying that hating any other minority would land you a ban or suspension.