If Trump kicks out Twitter, there's always Germany
reuters.com
reuters.com
On the other hand, Ireland does look like a sweet destination. Since they probably already have an office there (double Dutch sandwitch?), it wouldn't even be hard to do.
Dreams aside, probably no company is stupid enough to abandon a 330M big market that has plenty of cash to spend.
Let's for the sake of discussion ignore that it's some other political figurehead implementing this law, would it be acceptable? Is twitter a news outlet by editing or annotating a persons message and is it correct to say these companies are forming a monopoly/cartel on free speech. Does twitter's size and impact on the general populace mean it needs different rules to operate?
I'm much more interested in the stances and opinions of people regarding the status quo around social media and their function to the people and much less interested in the drama that ensues every time something leaves trump's mouth.
900+ comments and counting[0].
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances." [1]
Private entities can do what they want.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_...
> Private entities can do what they want.
Private entities can also get sued into oblivion by other private entities that believe they were wronged. Section 230 prevents that in exchange of some conditions and concessions as long as they are followed.
If twitter wants the freedom to do what they want, they will also have to accept the freedom to get sued into oblivion.
As such Twitter should come up with a clear and transparent policy on this (have they?). It's not specific to Trump.
IMHO, tweets by heads of states should not be subjected to any moderation, and perhaps replies should not be allowed.
Now, what someone tweets in one country may be an offence in another country so it is possible that Twitter might still have to make certain tweets by heads of states unavailable in some other countries.
This is not a simple issue but it will only grow.
Can surf the *.gov for that, or watch tv.
Or ist that the full spectrum dominance across all channels?
MLM?
Those tweets are unidirectional top down broadcasts in practice but they reach many more people than the official government website and they do it almost instantly.
What does "relocate" include? I mean, Twitter's infrastructure is not tight to the US and will already be spread all over the globe. So, only the address of the HQ?
As if that's not the case in the US? Trump's threats don't hold any water and, if we're being honest, our legal restrictions on speech are less stringent than Germany's.
Whether they would hold up in court and whether they chill speech are two separate things. (Just ask anyone who has been hit with a SLAPP case)
However representatives could make a law that says communication platforms deemed to be significant parts of political communication need to not control the conversation.
There is no equivalent to the US when it comes to freedom of speech.
No European country lifted a single finger in the defense of Snowden or Assange when they were in the cross-hairs of the US. No one will do it for twitter, especially when they could just let twitter die and move in to fill the void themselves.
Doesn't it seem odd to anyone that despite having some of the best hackers in the world come from it Germany has zero world-scale content platforms ?
Citation needed. Germany is a mess on that topic. On the one hand, we have ridiculous things like "police stations can't have cameras monitoring the sidewalk next to them because of privacy concerns", on the other hand we're obligated by law to inform the government when we move (with heavy fines if you do not comply immediately), and the data will be shared with our state media so they can collect their its-not-a-tax-media-tax, and political parties so they can send you ads (at least you can reject this, but it's opt-out, not opt-in).
As with many things in Germany, many things about privacy are missing the forest for the trees. We'll enforce with furious diligence things that are irrelevant, while you can't buy SIM cards anonymously and they're pushing for laws that might outlaw VPN services, there are regular pushes for removing "anonymity" from the internet etc.
Also the legal obligation to have every website specify the legal street address of the entity behind it as well as the full name of the "managing director" in charge.
This leading to privacy by mostly convention, but then everyone builds systems to circumvent it in inefficient ways. I.e. SSN and similar.
Instead of simply acknowledging that the government is going to get that information no matter what, and it is a requirement to actually govern a modern society. Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
Imho "making progress" is not the task of any court. Their job is to apply the laws to cases; want to make progress towards some goal? Change the laws, change the constitution.
> Which then forces you to have to face the discussion regarding what it entails and limit it's uses.
Which, of course, isn't happening. We have accepted (as if anybody ever asked us) that it's required to govern a "modern society", and now we have the police tapping whatever info source they can get away with. The courts will, in some cases at least, rule that they may not (but we don't have "fruit of the poisonous tree", so if they illegally search your house, they may still use whatever they find against you), but they're normalizing the overreach.
And it's not a political-side-thing either. The conservatives want to use it to fight islamic terrorists and the last three remaining communist revolutionaries, the progressives want to use it to fight racism, sexism and conservatives. Our main stream media (which is much more bundled up than in the US or UK) will generally urge for respecting privacy, but will also generally falter in any crisis and get in line. There are very few private NGOs that are holding the state's feet to the fire.
Setting things up so you can "govern a modern society" efficiently isn't all good. I'd take an inefficient administration that keeps its nose out of my business over an efficient administration any day.
Trump is a smart man. He has trouble handling the coronavirus so the best thing he can do is shift focus.
I think this article adds nothing. In fact, if you take a closer look it just says: 'Trump threatened to close Twitter and Thomas Jarzombek invites Twitter to Berlin.'.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz
Which is the actual goal.
And to be honest, racism and <insert-color> supermacy are the most primitive & superficial form of collectivism and thus disgusting, but...
If the idiots on left are going for affirmative action, which is basically discrimination based on superficial qualities such as gender, race & religion, why the idiots on the right should not be allowed to do the same?
It's quite possible that some people who want free speech now might be against free speech for others, but that's hardly an argument against having free speech in the first place.
It's an interesting thought experiment: under free speech you should be free to advocate for a restriction of free speech.
I'm questioning the idea that if all platforms were to be less restrictive, that particular type of content would become "overwhelming".
Some communities are more active online than others but generally I would expect the distribution of opinions expressed online to reflect the actual distribution of opinions actually held by the population.
You're assuming most people are tolerant of racist and bigoted content and don't mind seeing a constant stream of it, but when the Nazis show up, their discourse tends to drive everyone else away if they aren't banned. That's why they tend to take over communities where, in theory all sorts of opinions are welcome.
Surely Twitter would be better off in Germany, that's why today's Europe's literally full of thriving tech giants :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D