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Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by war1025 on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:34PM (#25692201)
They've wanted to ban him since day one. They just have the political backing to do it now.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by soupson on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:37PM (#25692289)
They have absolutely not wanted to ban him since day 1. He brings in millions of users and clicks.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by dexen on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:47PM (#25692554)
Two competing interests: let's ban our political opponent and let's keep our cash cow.

The middle management & line workers of Twitter can monetize their small Twitter stock portfolios pretty quick without shifting the market all that much. Jack, on the other hand, would take a major hit if he tried to sell off his.

=edit=

Clarification on content_sesh's good point: I don't assume whether Jack agrees or disagrees with Trump's points. They are billionaires, might be "frenemies" for all we know. I do assume Jack likes a cash-cow for his major property, Twitter - and tries to balance the upsides & downsides of hosting Trump's contentious content.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by content_sesh on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:54PM (#25692699)
I"m not sure where you're getting the idea that Jack disagrees with most or even many of Trump's policies.

edit to clarify in response to parent's edit (lol):

I don't doubt Twitter enjoyed being the primary platform for our extremely online president. I was getting at the "political opponents" thing. I feel there's a tendency where people like Jack and Zuckerburg get categorized as "not on the right politically", because they work in tech and live in California I guess. I disagree with that characterization, and my main reason is how they've allowed their platforms to be used.

For a very long time now, I've personally seen Twitter being used to amplify regressive, right-wing views while quashing (via suspension or permanent suspension) leftist voices that challenge them. The best way I can describe it succinctly would be a pervasive double-standard when applying their rules. So I, personally, specifically do not believe that Jack or Twitter leadership have aligned themselves politically against the right.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by dexen on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:34PM (#25693420)
>Jack or Twitter leadership

There's clear and strong undercurrent of Twitter employees and middle management expressing opposition to Trump, and also expressing sympathy to various left wing causes. Similar to other tech firms, like Google or Facebook.

That's why I point out conflict of interest inside Twitter. Might be partly ownership stake matter, partly cultural matter - employees tend to be a generation younger than management, and tend to have gone through a different path through life.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by SoSoRoCoCo on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:57PM (#25692741)
I think that's a bit cynical. This is the President of the USA we're talking about. His words matter for the sake of history. I believe it was smart to capture a log of his statements. It will be essential to the record. They should have also disallowed him from deleting tweets, but I suspect they have a copy of everything he ever posted since they claimed it was significant discourse.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by paxys on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:08PM (#25692942)
The responsibility of archiving presidential records should really not fall on a private company. If I had to put money on whether Twitter will be around a couple of decades from now, it'll be an easy "no".
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by semi-extrinsic on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:37PM (#25693487)
I believe the Library of Congress archives all historically relevant tweets. Up until 2017-ish they archived every single one.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by DennisP on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:37PM (#25693481)
I'd be very surprised if all Trump's tweets weren't scraped and saved in official archives.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by soupson on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:05PM (#25692887)
Hitler’s words matter for the sake of history but I don’t have to sell them in my book store.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by war1025 on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:49PM (#25693702)
Pretty sure you can buy Mein Kampf at most US bookstores. I know I bought a copy in high school, though I never did get around to reading it.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by wyattpeak on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:31PM (#25693377)
But it would be a trove of data if we did.

We don't know the Minoan language, and we get by. But that doesn't mean we don't value knowing Greek.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by nineplay on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:14PM (#25693063)
I've often wondered if he has any idea how much money Twitter has made off of him.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by gnicholas on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:53PM (#25692682)
Bingo. Think back to 2015 and how Twitter was doing back then. I don’t know how many millions of real users they’ve added since then, but the Trump presidency has been a boon for them. Way more people on the platform, and tons of them will stick around even after the ban.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by GarrisonPrime on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:59PM (#25692792)
The only reason they’re finally banning him is because his worth runs out in 12 days.

Dumping him now allows Twitter to virtue signal and avoid looking like an enabler of literal violence, all while giving up virtually nothing in return.

Kind of like how his cabinet members are now resigning. No big loss for them, as they’ll be out of a job shortly anyway. Might as well “stand up to him” while they still have the opportunity to reap political kudos.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by torstenvl on Saturday January 09, 2021 @12:36AM (#25697616)
Speculation and accusations are distinctly unhelpful.

If you have any evidence of Twitter's motivations, please post it. A leak of the internal e-mail traffic on this decision, if published, would be fascinating.

If not- If you're just asserting as fact your own assumptions about a company whose decision you don't like, then please go troll elsewhere.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by GarrisonPrime on Monday January 11, 2021 @10:07AM (#25729812)
>Speculation and accusations are distinctly unhelpful.

Unless you are the one making them, apparently.

I’m not trolling. And I made no “accusations”. I have no objection to Twitter’s decision. Sorry I didn’t make that clear.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by arpinum on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:38PM (#25692305)
They didn’t want to lose his audience to a competitor more than they wanted to ban him. It’s not political backing, it’s preferring money over morals.
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by andy_ppp on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:37PM (#25692283)
They have bent over backwards to keep him on the platform...
Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by jtdev on Friday January 08, 2021 @07:06PM (#25692900)
Trump brought immense traffic to Twitter. Jack Dorsey is simply virtue signaling now that he’s reaped everything he can from Trump’s existence on the platform... social media has far too much power, and the heads of these organizations are not your friends.

I do not support or endorse Trump or his cronies.

Re:Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump by GrumpyNl on Friday January 08, 2021 @06:42PM (#25692428)
They start deleting all kinds of pro trump accounts.