That's so patently untrue. These people have been using social media to spread nothing but disinformation. And their one and only reason for revolting is their mistaken belief that the election was stolen. Nobody needs to listen or sympathetize with their nonsense and giving them a platform has been far, far worse for the country than censoring them.

> These people have been using social media to spread nothing but disinformation.

Since when was it Twitter's job to make sure that only true things are said? "Somebody is wrong on the internet" used to be a meme, but now its a solemn responsibility of content hosts?

This is a really dangerous path as it applies to political speech.

Yeah, this move is very concerning to me. Moving forward, when any particular platform grows to the point where it becomes a candidate's primary means of being heard (the next Twitter/Facebook), those companies effectively gain the power to change the outcome of an election by censoring and demonizing that person, and doing the same to the people who support that candidate.

Imagine in the future if a company bans and demonizes a political opponent that they don't like because that candidate violated an arbitrary ToS - regardless of whether the candidate was right or wrong in violating those terms, due to the company's influence and reach, would it not, for all practical purposes, count as election interference?

my problem isn't really banning... it's inconsistency based on political whims and flash mobs.

If you ban all violence and racism? great... if you ban racism and violence from the right and allow it from the left? That's unacceptable.

The Covington story is not remotely equivalent. News organizations ran a story based on information that turned out to be inaccurate. It was sloppy, not deliberate and most of the same orgs that got it wrong ran corrections. That's misinformation.

I have no idea what you mean by the laptop story. The laptop existed and had some photos on it. The notion that it proved corruption was completely unsubstantiated and it was very clearly engineered as a political ploy.

Donald Trump and his supporters have been very deliberately concocting false stories to further a political agenda that has led to dangerous confrontations and culminated in a violent insurrection. Stories that utterly defy reality and are designed explicitly to sow discord. Stories that have hampered our covid response to the tune of hundreds of thousands of deaths. Trying to draw a parallel is absolutely ridiculous. There is a slippery slope here but we're at the bottom of that slope trying to climb right now.

> Covington not relevant

False stories were allowed for weeks or months after facts were know without repurcussions

> laptop story

Stories about Hunter Biden were ACTIVELY suppressed on claims of "russian disinformation" without proof that they were in fact RD.

Stories about Trump with LESS evidence and more proof of "disinformation" are allowed to run unchecked.

> deliberately concocting false stories to further political agendas

And the same can be said of his detractors... INCLUDING among facebook/twitter. Both floating unverified stories and suppressing stories that haven't been proven false.

> explicitly sow discord

again... all the same is allowed from the left. Biden is allowed to claim "police treat BLM worse" when facts say the opposite... details that go against "trump mob violent" (IE antifa/blm individuals and groups in the "mob", cops letting protestors in, etc) are suppressed...

You want a slippery slope? allowing "facebook and twitter" to determine truth is THE slippery slope. They are biased and have been proven wrong repeatedly.

There is no "trying to climb out". Giving them unfettered power is digging the hole deeper.

They were literally just given the right to exercise their voices in a democratic election. That’s the opposite of silence.

Free speech is more than a vote.

Indeed. Fortunately for us free speech doesn't guarantee access to an active Twitter account.

Courts have looked at this a few times. Some of the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence, not pure procedural matters.

At least one case was even dismissed due to lack of concrete allegations.

Their belief that nobody will listen to their evidence is just another part of their fantasy, another part of the complex of lies.

It's hard to try evidence lawyers won't produce in a court of law. Because they're fucking lying to you but won't to courts - that has consequences. Lying to you has none. At least, none that they care about.

my understanding is that there were numerous occasions where Rudy Guiliani himself went to court and had opportunity to present evidence and presented nothing. Are you being disingenuous when you say "no court has tried evidence" because none was presented to them?

> To date, no court has tried evidence,

From a quick search, multiple courts have judged on merit, and found no compelling evidence provided.

“To date, no court has tried evidence, nor have any administrations publicly committed to audits”

Trump’s team has notched up over 60 losses in court so far.[1]

“They are being told by the other side that there is no evidence, but this is the same other side they think have been lying to them for years, so of course these people will not believe the other side.”

Actually at this point they are being told that by senior leaders from their own side - see the statements from Republicans Brad Raffensperger and Mitch McConnell this week.

[1]https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/zoetillman/trump-electi...

This is a lie, there were over thirty court cases.

and isn't the other side remembered for making the same claims for FL and Gore? or is that even part of this now it's gone so far?

Trump and his supporters are lying to people, which is making those people angry. Allowing Trump to continue to lie to people will just continue to make them angrier.

It's called losing in an election, it's not like fraud in a deciding scale actually happened.

There's still a 1 million $ award in texas if you have actual have proof.

Actually, the unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud, the frivolous legal challenges to the election results, the fomenting of rage and grievance among Trump supporters, and the attack on the Capitol building were attempts to silence and overturn the votes of the majority of voters, who elected Biden to be president.

Yes, you are right that a lot of folks on the Trump side want to silence Biden supporters. That's terrible.

The Biden voters actually did make effective moves to silence Trump supporters. That's also terrible.

How were they silenced? They've got mouthpieces like fox news and the president of the united states on their side for years, they can't get much louder.