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Comment by shostack | Hacker News Reader

How about incentive to expel users who violate their ToS like our President? Surely threatening nuclear war violates their "Abusive Behavior" rules (which are part of their TOS)... [1]

> "Violent threats (direct or indirect): You may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism."

And that's just getting started.

Has there been ANY statement from Twitter leadership on why they permit Trump to continue with this behavior? I have my own cynical answer, but I'm curious if they've gone on record for what is such a blatant abuse of their ToS it is unconscionable that they let it continue.

[1] https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311

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The short answer is probably that if Twitter were to ban Trump, they'd face an enormous backlash from folks who take it as suppression of political opinions. It's a blessing and a curse for twitter, I'm sure -- having Trump tweet regularly has probably been a boon for business, overall. If you're generous, you could make the argument that Twitter is allowing the President to bypass the traditional media outlets and have his voice heard directly (for better or worse).

> Surely threatening nuclear war violates their "Abusive Behavior" rules.

Even if you were to try to live by the letter of the law, you'd have a hard time really getting this to stick, I imagine. If this is the tweet you're referring to:

"Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!"

Then I think you'd have a hard time construing this as "terrorism", any moreso than half of Twitter's population has said (sports teams getting "killed", public figures "not being around anymore" (i.e. probably meaning "in office")).

The interpretation of the Twitter rules that people seem to expect is one which bans everyone they detest and permits everyone they like. I mean, there's a huge overlap between the people complaining about Twitter not banning Trump because nuclear war and the Nazi-punching brigade who rely on Twitter's rules on threatening violence not actually banning all threats of violence.

(Not to mention that that the main reason the demands to ban Trump have restarted is because Twitter briefly suspended someone for posting another person's private phone number to their 800,000 Twitter followers, and she and everyone else is using this to justify why Twitter should have let her get away with it.)

This has nothing to do with Trump specifically -- the rules are different for people at the top. Twitter needs him more than he needs Twitter.

No they don't - if it gets into the news that Twitter bans Trump for abusive behaviour, that will look super positive to the majority of people IMHO. I'd certainly put Twitter in a much brighter light.

When you take a stand for something - you might break some bridges - but you'll also be building bridges.

A significant portion of the American public would be outraged and would be screaming about censorship. Others would be elated.

It would be pretty interesting to see what the response would be, because Trump would no longer have an easy, low-effort medium to get his message out. Would he just turn to a right-wing social network like Gab? Would he just use traditional media instead?

The majority of people... in your tiny social bubble.

>>super positive to the majority of people

Extremely unlikely.

Twitter did respond to this recently. Apparently "newsworthiness" plays a factor in their decision making.

https://twitter.com/Policy/status/912438362010783744

That's such a copout. Any threat of large scale violence from anyone could be considered "newsworthy." The real answer is they never anticipated a POTUS would break their TOS, and they have no idea how to deal with it, without being hypocritical.

To be fair, he's their biggest user.

http://huffingtonpost.ca/2017/08/18/donald-trump-worth-2-bil...

I wouldn't be particularly sad to see him lose his account, but I don't think this is a useful angle of approach.

This clause is pretty clearly about illegal violence. Part of the President's job can involve both threats and actual violence. I think this president is a dangerous loon. But I don't think Twitter should a priori ban government accounts from talking about, say, a declared war.

Sorry, but I'm not clear on what part of "You may not make threats of violence or promote violence" specifies it must be "illegal" violence. Part of the President's job may be to make threats and conduct violent actions against other nations. That doesn't change the fact that it violates the terms of use.

That kind of talk has no place on Twitter based on Twitters own rules that say no threats are allowed.

I get the theory, but you're over-interpreting the specific words of one part of the policy.

The words are an expression of the ideas in people's heads, and are written with a particular context in mind. That context is fighting the normal kinds of platform abuse they see. The policy was definitely not meant to encompass the typical actions of governments and heads of state. Nobody was even thinking about that at the time they were written.

If they were to use that to ban Trump, it would be pretty obvious rules lawyering [1]. Which many people certainly feel is justified, and I understand why. But from Twitter's perspective, rules lawyering, no matter how much people feel it's justified, undermines trust. So if they want to get rid of Trump, they'd be better off writing a specific policy that Trump (and others) are clearly violating, not bending something else to fit.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_lawyer

They have. Basicaly... too bad. He gets us users. At least that’s my interpretation.

https://www.avclub.com/twitter-releases-statement-confirming...

I bet this would hit the news in a huge way - Trump would certainly not be able to contain himself and do video responses - or it might set him over the edge, not having that ability to vent - maybe a good thing, maybe not.

It would certainly gain a lot of positive attention and give huge props to Twitter IMHO too.

> It would certainly gain a lot of positive attention and give huge props to Twitter IMHO too.

From your tribe, and it would generate a lot of negative attention and give huge condemnation to Twitter IMHO too from the other tribe.

Because they're acknowledging and disallowing abusive behaviour? Or of course that's just all #fakenews - the abusive behaviour?

You are under the impression that everyone shares your opinion and then go for the dismissive #fakenews. I guess you assume anyone who thinks ill of your view must be a Trump supporter and that is some type of slam that can dismiss without thought of others.

> Because they're acknowledging and disallowing abusive behaviour?

They might have a bit more of a leg to stand on if their abuse council had a wider political spread or they actually policed threats that are illegal in a consistent manner. They are so ham fisted that they cannot even point out a rules violation with suspending an actress's account.

> Or of course that's just all #fakenews - the abusive behaviour?

The whole "threatening nuclear war violates" as abusive behavior is a losing argument. The President doesn't like a lot of people and doesn't conceal that information. The idea any of his tweets go beyond hurting someone's feelings is pretty absurd. In contrast, Twitter allows actual threats of assassination without consequence. Nevermind all the threats of rape, etc. directed at women on Twitter without any answer. Look at any popular, conservative women's timeline and see all the crap the abuse council and twitter support lets through. Actual threats versus hurt feelings shows what should have action taken.

All of this is just some people's desire to remove a direct outlet from groups of people. It has nothing to do with actual threats.

This argument is really so laughable. And it's unrelated to the article

Perhaps their argument has some merit but it's disappointing to see such an off topic comment at the top.

It's just a cheap shot, I've seen this argument being made, some people just want Trump off Twitter because it's a huge propaganda machine for him. But that's simply never going to happen for a myriad of reasons that we all know. It's pathetic they keep pushing this argument just to make noise. There are many things one can do to oppose Trump, this is one of the worst ones.

white people are a protected minority group in the eyes of facebook/twitter

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