The trespassing and sacking of the capitol is precisely a sign of backsliding on traditionally liberal ideas from the enlightenment, much more so than Twitter banning the number one inciter of the aforementioned insurrection.

The outrage it's generated from all corners of American society seem to run against that idea. Just because a relatively small mob of determined extremists can raid a building for an afternoon does not indicate some kind of earth-shattering, society-changing transformative event. Popular social media platforms using shaky, uneven, and arguably unjustifiable logic to ban both speech and people from their respective shares of the public sphere is, however, indicative of an ever-growing attack by monopolized social platforms on exactly those traditionally liberal ideas that makes such amazingly diverse and open-minded communities to begin with.

Congress asking for help and the president ignoring it. Governors asking if they could send in help and the executive said no. It took Mike fucking Pence, whose job is NOT to activate the national guard, to activate the national guard before extra help was sent over. What the fuck happened January 6th?

The pure inaction of everyone involved surrounding the situation in the Capitol building should terrify you. The rioters never should have even gotten inside the building.

All valid points. At the very least this mess provides a case study of the potential consequences of reducing law enforcement presence in favor of optics

I think most of that has actually been disproven.

At a minimum, the mayor de-escalated and restricted the national guard before the march started, and the capital police turned away initial offers of help (they're segregated from other federal police due to separation of powers, and Congress wants it that way).

But yes, can you blame them for not wanting to deploy the national guard, when he got crucified 6 months ago for... Wanting to deploy the national guard to protect the White House from repeated attacks?

It hasn't generated outrage from all corners of society - in a YouGov survey[1], 45% of Republican voters supported the storming of the Capitol and 68% did not view it as a threat to democracy. That still doesn't make it a transformative event per se, but maybe more like a transformatively revealing symptom of a larger problem that already existed?

Edit: not to throw just one party under the bus. Same survey showed 21% of voters overall approved and 32% didn't see it as a threat to democracy. That's still a lot more than an isolated few Americans.

[1] https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/20...

“a building“

It matters a lot which building they raided, and who praised them for doing so.

True. All the more important we can't let attacks on our important national symbols cloud our judgement and allow vague claims and anger to steer our decisions.

The entire chain of succession was in that building. Both houses. VP Pence. Pelosi. VP-elect Harris.

And the insurrectionists came for them.

It was 9 justices and 1 President short of a State of the Union address.

actual insurrectionists would've have done more than take selfies, commit petty vandalism and wander around in a daze for a couple of hours. it was a boomer chimpout.

the people who are using the language of insurrection/terror etc are doing so with the purpose of creating casus belli to enact retribution on their political & cultural enemies and to turn the war on terror inwards. if we have learned nothing about restraint in the years after 9/11 then we are heading for a nightmare scenario.

Like killing a police officer and bringing pipebombs and zipties?

> the people who are using the language of insurrection/terror etc are doing so with the purpose of creating casus belli to enact retribution on their political & cultural enemies and to turn the war on terror inwards. if we have learned nothing about restraint in the years after 9/11 then we are heading for a nightmare scenario.

I can see how the actions seem relatively harmless if you consider them in a vacuum.

But this is just goalpost-moving, and it's happened every time something awful has happened over the past 4 years.

Perhaps it will help if you consider the totality of the scenario; the plans to travel, the bombs and munitions created and acquired; the calls to violence from the president just before the actions; Rudy Giuliani asking for "trial by combat" as the crowd prepared to march on the Capitol. The repeated quotes *from the insurrectionists themselves* announcing that "this is a revolution" and talking about hanging people, coming for their heads, overturning the election.

Quite simply, if you read the definition of insurrection, there's no way to NOT apply it to these events, and sedition to apply to the president and Rudy among others.

>>the people who are using the language of insurrection/terror etc are doing so with the purpose of creating casus belli to enact retribution on their political & cultural enemies and to turn the war on terror inwards.

Seems that way to me too. Time will tell, I guess.

“actual insurrectionists would've have done more than take selfies“

Perhaps they would have if the evacuation had been unsuccessful, or if the certified electoral college results had still been around.

Restraint and appeasement are two different things.

> actual insurrectionists would've have done more than take selfies, commit petty vandalism and wander around in a daze for a couple of hours. it was a boomer chimpout.

Because they were foiled - their targets were successfully evacuated. They sought out Pelosi and Schumer's offices specifically - the ones outfitted in military tactical gear I mean, not the grandma that needed help getting back down the stairs. They built a gallows and were chanting "Hang Mike Pence".

“important national symbols”

It’s not just a symbol.

So, you'd rather have a despot than to censor a potential despot?

The fact that this was incited by President of US for whom about 70 million voted for despite him showing all these tendencies for pay 4 years would mean that this is intact a huge event. How the hell can any sane person call this a trivial event?

The worst outrage based on pathological lies.

I don't disagree with anything you said. But terrorist violence & sedition are not protected speech. Whether they banned him for the right or wrong reason, he still needs to be banned.

It's true that terrorism & sedition is not protected speech, but it's also true that the logic Twitter is invoking here to connect the tweets to terrorism & sedition is questionable at best. Regardless, why should we accept Twitter banning people for the "wrong" reasons?

> why should we accept Twitter banning people for the "wrong" reasons

I think this confuses "you" with "we".

You shouldn't accept it if you feel it is unfair, and you should express that if you feel the need to, subject to the rules of whatever platform you use to express it.

But "we" (as in the people of the United States), via the powers of government, have no right under the Constitution to compel (or if you prefer, to "not accept") Twitter to allow him to tweet on their platform.

It had been this way with private moderation basically since forever. What makes you think the owners need your acceptance?

Sedition is protected speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seditious_libel#Seditious_spee...

> as long as it does not indicate an "imminent" threat.

You missed a pretty pertinent qualifier here, but that was interesting, thanks for sharing.

>Just because a relatively small mob of determined extremists can raid a building for an afternoon does not indicate some kind of earth-shattering, society-changing transformative event.

It absolutely does indicate that. Read up on German history.

Thank you for saying concisely what I've been thinking.

I feel like after the twin towers were blown up.

It was less than 100 individuals that were the impetuous for one of the worst pieces of legislation I know of. The Patriot Act. Which was voted on in a complete state of fear. Creating an extra judicial process for people who fit into a given category.

I fear the reaction to this, which I'd argue is why Twitter needed a great press release to justify banning Trump (which they can and should do as a private corporation).

EDIT: I feel like we're in a reactionary state of shock where lawmakers may try to push laws that sound good to people who are in shock and fear.

> I feel like we're in a reactionary state of shock where lawmakers may try to push laws that sound good to people who are in shock and fear.

Yes, less than a year after trump allowed the patriot act to expire.

Like a stopped clock, Trump has on a few rare occasions done the right thing, and I have been surprised and grateful whenever it has happened.

Ha, what timing. Now we can make laws about domestic terrorism and give the government the same powers.

Seems it was the House:

The Senate passed a 77-day extension in March 2020, but the House of Representatives did not pass the legislation before departing for recess on March 27, 2020.[13][14][15][16]

(Wikipedia)

Let's hope they don't.

Liberal ideas from the enlightenment are alive and well. Now if the government had banned Trump from speaking, then you would have a point. Twitter banning Trump is, at root, a business making a business decision.

Here's reality, and I'm going to date myself here, but there were, long ago, enormously popular digital spaces called BBS's. You could chat, play games (MUDs mostly), etc etc. They are, by and large, no longer with us. New and admittedly better technologies came along. So will it be with Social Media. As difficult as it may be for people to believe, 40 years from now, Social Media in its current form will probably not be with us any longer.

Here's the thing though, the government will still be with us. So it's the government that we need to constrict. And, using the tool of our Constitution, we do an admirable job of constricting the government's ability to restrict our free speech. That Twitter says a man can't talk on their private property is not a societal problem. That the government says a man can't talk anywhere in the country is a societal problem. There's been far too much conflating of these two issues, they are not the same.

I agree in some respects but comparing the nature of the internet today compared to the internet we remembered back in the 90s, it’s abundantly clear that consolidation and centralization are significant forces.

We’re not really making the same progress on decentralizing the web that we thought we would. Is it really that difficult to see further consolidation as the most likely outcome?

Mass decentralization may bring on centralization of lies and deceit though.

The ideal requires great maturity.

Yeah, except for the fact that there’s no one bbs “to rule them all”. The power these platforms have mean they’re up there in terms of influence of govt.

As I saw concisely said on Twitter: If you can silence a king, you are the king

There's nothing more absurd than calling the loudest carnival barker on the planet with virtually every form of media at his hands "silenced".

There are reasonable concerns about precedent here, but it's hard to see a reasonable perspective where this particular enforcement action is "silencing". If Trump has something he'd like people to hear, he can simply announce a press conference, and dozens of major news organizations will be ready within minutes to share his thoughts with the world.

How quickly we forget the past. Trump took to Twitter specifically because he believed none of the news organizations were reliable narrators of his messaging.

He believed that because to him, anything less than obsequious praise is fake. It doesn’t make it true.

Back in 2017 Trump had 3643 domains. I can only speculate that there are more now. There's no substance to the claim that he's silenced.

https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/20/technology/trump-websites/i...

How many eyeballs spend how many minutes per day on those domains?

Exposure != delivery points.

Twitter has audience.

Lets put aside the events that this suspension is targeting and just focus on the statement of business making a business decision about their private property.

Why is there a difference between Twitter, Inc making such decision and Verizon Communications. Neither are government.

The only reasonable argument that I can think of is that Twitter holds less of an monopoly to their users than Verizon. That however seems to me as up to interpretation, and not about the question about what is or isn't private property.

Verizon will close accounts that are used to commit crimes.

We are talking about two different things. One is an ISP that closes an account, and the other is an ISP that has a firewall that prevents access by their customers to reach a site that has information from Trump.

Yes. Agree, but only if you also remove Section 230 that provides immunity from civil liabilities for such businesses making business decisions.

Oh absolutely. I've long been in favor of getting rid of section 230. I'm not sure why we have it?

Sedition, terrorism, and advocating the overthrow of the government ARE NOT PROTECTED SPEECH. If the government did tell Trump he was banned it wouldn't violate any liberal principles. It's not personal that's just the law. And it's litterally the law in every country on earth.

There is literally nothing Trump said that advocated for either terrorism or the overthrow of the government. Also sedition is protected speech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seditious_libel#Seditious_spee...

Whilst I agree somewhat, that's a sufficiently abstract case to make that cognizablity is low.

Things that are tangible and can be seen or sensed or emoted directly have impact. Crowds, sounds, death, damage, violence, mayhem.

> IMHO there are things that are much more scary than some trespassing into government buildings or a riot.

Yeah, like, some people trespassing into government buildings in the middle of officially declaring the next president, with an intention to disrupt the procedure, at the urge of the current outgoing president. Now that is some scary shit.

And occupying the Senate building for the SCOTUS confirmation, admittedly to intimidate senators to change their vote, is different how? Other than one was met with resistance and the other was given unfettered access.

One was given access then 300 people were arrested for their civil disobedience (loud chanting, refusal to leave). Fox reported it as "[there to] protest Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court and put pressure on the handful of undecided senators". I've seen no indication people carried weapons, pushed through barricades, or threatened anyone.

Probably all of the violence, vandalism, looting, and coming in with tools to take hostages. And bombs with timers placed elsewhere.

HN: "Yes, but other than that stuff..."

</s>

where have you been for the past 8 months?

the widespread negation of facts and obliteration or information on subjects at fiat for political purposes strongly resembles to my mind only a reversal of centuries of libertarian and democratic advancement with frightening and real potential consequent potential for according reversal in social and economic development.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25692834.

> slide backwards from traditionally liberal ideas spawned from the enlightenment

It's not by chance that enlightenment ended in the terror the first time around, people should read more about the past.

Personal attacks are not ok on HN, regardless of how wrong someone is or you feel they are. If you break the site guidelines as egregiously as this or https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25698892 again, we will have to ban you. We're trying to avoid hell on this site, which kind of requires not jumping straight into it.

> IMHO there are things that are much more scary than some trespassing into government buildings or a riot.

Yes, like trespassing into government buildings for the purpose of preventing a peaceful, lawful democratic transfer of power.

Protest is compatible with democracy. What happened two days ago is not. If you don't like the outcome of an election, you can complain about it, you can be a nuisance about it, you can talk about it. What you can't do, is try to carry out a coup.