Hacker News Reader

Comment by briefcomment | Hacker News Reader

Can you read his mind? If not, how can you tell the difference between a tyrant and a troll (and even a savvy negotiator)? One way is to see what actually happens. My bet is that no social media company will be shut down because of this.

View on HN

Making threats to use your power as commander-in-chief against the free speech of a private company is not "trolling" or "negotiation", it's creating a chilling effect on speech whether he goes through with it or not.

I doubt he would shut Twitter down (if only because he needs it more than it needs him), but I don't doubt for a second that he would use the executive branch to retaliate against them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilling_effect

To add to that, Twitter shares dropped significantly on opening and ended the day down -2.75%. By contrast, the S&P rose 1.5% today. In the absence of other confounding variables, this would suggest investors see a material effect of his words.

That's silly, compare TWTR to other small cap tech and its pretty much in-line for the day (eg, PINS, CHWY, SHOP). It's also fairly in line for QQQ. There's no evidence that trump's tweet changed anything about Twitter's price movement today.

I dropped Twitter stock not because I think they will be regulated (they may) but because I think this was just a stupid move, and shows they aren’t making good business decisions.

> shows they aren’t making good business decisions.

I mean, I could have told you that when the already part-time CEO announced he'd move to Africa for a year :)

Africa is going to be the next {China, India, Vietnam, ...} in terms of manufacturing, industrial growth, smart phone and payments penetration, etc.

Dorsey is being incredibly smart by trying to figure out how to break into the African market. He probably wants to do payments there. Get in early, win the market. It's genius.

Just look at what's happening with Belt and Road.

Africa is going to be huge.

If I had his money and influence, I would be doing the same.

wait for tomorrow - he's already moving in this direction. THese are very concerning times...

That's one way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that he's telling Twitter to "cut their crap". I would bet about half the country sees it that way, and agrees with him too.

I don’t see a chilling effect. If anything it’s a heating and dividing effect, but certainly this isn’t making people quieter about the debate.. see this comment thread for proof.

It's not chilling random Internet commentators. It's chilling actions by large platforms to have or keep any principles.

This has nothing to do with people and their debate. This is a direct threat to a company to violate their free speech which, in itself, is a crime not unlike directly threatening violence against a person.

It’s a threat to regulate them as a public utility certainly, but that’s been done before to phone companies (by the left) in the past.

It’s definitely a threat. But I don’t see any people backing down, and using “chilling” to me is just pathos to try and make one side seem right. It’s a disagreement on what to do and how to run our big platforms.

Trump didn’t just disagree with Twitter’s opinion of his tweets, or how Twitter operates.

He made threats to retaliate, clearly to chill speech he disagrees with.

They are not the same thing. Not even close. And businesses will have to take his behavior into account, especially if some people give him a pass for this.

Trump keeps moving the bar, or trying to, in terms of pushing back against any organizational or legal limits on himself.

It has been both amazing and depressing to see how quickly people start making excuses for him, and declaring his behavior acceptable when it is clearly corruption.

“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true. ... Mass propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not particularly object to being deceived because it held every statement to be a lie anyhow. The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.”

— Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism

We can't read his mind but we can generate a fairly accurate model based on what he says. He has openly admired the powers of tyrants in multiple countries, and hinted that he would like to continue to be president after his term completes. Based on my read of his text, it seems like he sincerely believes things like "Kim Jong Un is a good guy and he deserves to continue running North Korea".

Of course no social media company will be shut down over this- Trump has absolutely zero power in this regard (I think half of Trump's frustration is in realizing how little power a president truly has).

Anyway, he doesn't think he is a king. He thinks he is an emperor.

> He thinks he is an emperor.

.. and ultimately, it was Twitter who said he has no clothes.

Weird times.

Of course no social media company will be shut down over this. Trump couldn't shut down Twitter even if he wanted to.

The US Government could easily bankrupt Twitter. I doubt the Trump Administration is smart enough to figure out how to do this, but here is how easy it would be.

Twitter frequently selectively enforces its own terms of service. They punish some users and then intentionally let other users get away with atrocious behavior with no consequences. I've witnessed this across hundreds of various Twitter accounts over the last several years, so the number of times this happens must be rather epic. Numerous agencies of the US Government can choose to pursue Twitter for that. Twitter will find it impossible to correct their chaotic, selective, biased approach to how they treat their users so very differently. Angency N from the government slaps Twitter with an increasing fine each time they fail to properly, equitably enforce their terms of service. Start at $100 million and double it with every violation. Twitter will be bankrupt before a month is out.

Twitter would get on their knees and beg for mercy almost instantly. The US Government can break any corporation it wants to, anytime it wants to.

If the Trump Admin wants to be really devious, Nixonian, they'll target the executives operating the companies. Sending the IRS & Co. to make their lives a living hell. These companies will capitulate instantly.

Just ask the PRISM companies how this works in reality: you have no choice but to bow. It all depends on how nasty the Feds are prepared to get.

And the courts would strike down all of that. Even the ultra conservative judges.

And on top of that would force the government to pay for Twitter's legal fees. And probably also for economic damages.

The end result would be a non-US company taking Twitter's place.

Then the US Gov't would be back at square one. Only worse.

One would expect that if this happened Twitter would just cease US operations and move everything outside US Govt. jurisdiction?

That was quick...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-28/trump-fur...

Reply on news.ycombinator.com