> 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!!!
> To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.
I think it’s clear about controlling the narrative.
In the end what this will do is kickstart more of an echochamber on another service, they’ll diverge and we’ll get people in one camp on one platform, the other camp in the other. Except they’ll be more extreme on both sides as moderates tail off.
They are already openly planning violence: https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347609631527489537?...
What the hell happened to us?
That's pretty clearly a veiled threat taken in light of all his other statements and the violence from just days ago.
> To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.
Imagine living in a society where saying either of these things is a banning offense. To all the censorship apologists here: you've given unelected and unaccountable people at big tech companies the ability to decide what people can say in public. Is that really the world you want to live in?
Well, this is what they promote: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146 . They promote content that results with engagement since thats most profitable for them, above all else. It just so happens that emotional fake novelty spreads the most and leads to maximum engagement.
Optimizing for engagement above all else is what has lead to that unhealthy, toxic environment. Monsters have been created, and they are out of control. It doesn't matter who social media companies ban, or what was actually tweeted: if there is a way to interpret it in the most emotionally charged, exciting way, it will eventually be reinterpreted that way, just like a game of broken telephone.
You have things backwards: they haven't and in fact I do and already do.
What gives Twitter the right to decide what can be said via its software is the first amendment to the US constitution. Which is a world I live in and do want to live in -- it's stronger and better than the "free" speech guarantees in Europe.
The first amendment prevents elected people from deciding what people can and can't say in public.
And twitter banning someone doesn't actually control what they can say "in public", merely on Twitter. I don't use twitter and I heard about this from one of those other channels.
Throughout US history the person with the press has been able to decide what is printed on its press. Today there are more opportunities to be heard than ever before.
Ah, reading that opened my eyes because, personally, I really couldn't disagree more. I suspect that disagreement on this is behind much of why people don't see eye-to-eye on this "private censorship" issue. I know very few people who use social media, and I don't see anything lacking from their role in society as a result. No offense, just my $0.02. :-)
Gotta love people -- on a news site made for people who tinker with computers -- thinking in binary and not having nuance.
These tweets HAVE to be taken in context. It would be disingenuous to take every single one of his tweet at face value without considering his influence and position. He's dog whistled enough in the past, and look where that led.
> .. what people can say in public
Twitter != public Twitter cannot prevent you from physically speaking your opinion
The very idea of "freedom of speech" translates pretty poorly in the era of social media. Giving someone the freedom to speak their mind is orthogonal from giving them the ability to instantly amplify and broadcast their speech.
So, for this specific case: OK, Twitter, got you. We happen to be on the same side, but your reaction makes me migrate my (non-existing, for the same reasons) twitter account to something else.
IMHO, we need to ban every government and their agencies from relying on commercial services only: A minimalistic message routing protocol should exist that governments require participants in their market-place to support.
Given that, "Is that really the world you want to live in?" ... Yes.
This determination is based on a number of factors, including:
- President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.
- The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.
- The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.
- The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.
- Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.
Context is important when evaluating words. The president has historically shown a pattern of speaking out of both sides of his mouth ("stand back and stand by"). The pattern continues here.
That's so Orwellian. That so obviously reads... "we wanted to ban him, so we did".
Like, if you want to ban him based on past tweets, just do it. But to claim that this tweet is inciting violence is just farcical.
The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.
Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.
It seems possible if not likely that Twitter is closely monitoring how his followers are reacting to the tweets (at a scale that none of us are really capable of), and the permanent ban results most closely from that.
It is also possible that Twitter is trying to evade liability in case there are more attacks and there was some organization on their platform.
Definition of Liberal used to be: "Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. Relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."
[1] https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...
This should hopefully spur more competition in the micro-blogging space as conservatives are now forced to create their own alternative. Previous alternatives didn't see much usage since the biggest names like Trump were still on Twitter.
#WalkAway is a movement of ex liberals who have left the democrat party. Founded by a gay dude, majority blacks, hispanics, gay etc. Had over half a million users who shared their testimonials on why they left the democrat party. Facebook banned the group today along with the founder and all the members.... all 500K of them
I assume you typo'd that handle? There are only five tweets from 2013 on that account. https://twitter.com/TechnoFog
I imagine whatever actually got him banned isn't caught in the cache, though.
Edit: Oh, damn, I had just seen the Twitter Safety and just assumed that this was linking to that, not to a separate blogpost. As many people have pointed out it was for these two tweets:
On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump tweeted:
“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!!!”
Shortly thereafter, the President tweeted:
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”