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Comment by bmmayer1 | Hacker News Reader

This was the right move by Twitter at the right time.

If they had blocked his account years, or even months ago, they would have had maintained no credibility as a platform, in the pocket of the left, etc.

If they don't take a stand now, they're all but complicit in perpetuating this [riot? attempted coup? insurrection?]

That said, people should be careful what they wish for: we don't want a couple of powerful media platforms deciding which speech is considered permissible and which isn't. They have to be very conservative in their approach or these platforms will cease to carry any authority.

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Was twitter shutting down BLM or Antifa accounts during their riots this summer?

Twitter regularly locks the accounts of people that violate their policies. So probably, if they were violating Twitter policy with their tweets.

Given the large numbers of people involved you can probably find a Tweet that somebody twote that was a policy violation and didn't result in a lock.

What about that?

Can you cite any BLM or Antifa accounts that were posting tweets instigating violence (and which weren't shut down)?

Not BLM/Antifa but Lijian Zhao (Chinese diplomat) posted a doctored image of a soldier holding a knife to a child’s throat with the message: “Shocked by murder of Afghan civilians & prisoners by Australian soldiers. We strongly condemn such acts, &call for holding them accountable.” (https://twitter.com/zlj517/status/1333214766806888448). Twitter didn’t even bother to post a disclaimer (like they do with Trump’s tweets) and ignored the request of Australia’s PM to delete the tweet.

An image that is obviously not a photo. The dude is literally standing on a large puzzle board. It's a reference to something that actually happened, and clear it's not an actual photo... Should political cartoons also be removed in your opinion?

I don’t think it’s obvious at all, especially when you view it on a mobile. You can also see the words Morrison used to describe the post: “truly repugnant, deeply offensive, utterly outrageous. The Chinese government should be totally ashamed of this post. It diminishes them in the world’s eyes. It is a false image and a terrible slur on our defense forces.”

As for whether the post should be removed.. well, I’m personally against censorship, but if you’re going to remove Trump’s posts then I similarly think this post ought to be removed as well.

That tweet was perpetuating slander but was not instigating violence...

The current bar is someone fanning the flames but then gives a concessionary call for peace. It should be easier to find than people explicitly instigating violence.

no but then again ANTIFA and BLM have code for all their rhetoric. Violent activity is just referred to as "direct action".

Can you direct me to the manager of Antifa so I can tweet @jack and tell him to ban them?

I am not sure what’s the point of this snarky comment. Are you implying that antifa and similar so-called far-left movements are incapable of organizing?

This seems evidently false. Some examples of such organizations are By Any Means Necessary and Refuse Fascism. Both are formed by various anarchists, Trotskyists and other radical (in the sense of wanting to radically change the current organization of society) leftists. Both fight against Trump administration and for LBTGQA+ rights and various forms of socialism.

Twitter banned him just after he told protestors to go home. His message of deescalation will not reach them, instead they will see he is banned and be further riled up. This is a very dangerous game twitter is playing.

That "go home in peace" message had all the sincerity and subtext of "Sure is a... nice place ya got here..."

>message of deescalation

Pull the other one. That's not what it was.

Your timeline is wrong. The hiding of the tweets and the account lockdown happened after the police had already begun to re-take the Capitol; I want to say several hours later.

If he wants to reach out to people he has other avenues like public airwaves, the emergency broadcast system, the white house website, etc.

We shouldn't act like Twitter is muzzling him during a time of crisis.

Surely, a sitting US president can talk to the public without begging a private company to publish his words.

Good point.

> Surely, a sitting US president can talk to the public without begging a private company to publish his words.

Um, are television companies not private in the U.S.?

Do you regularly check the White House website?

Would it be appropriate to make ordinary statements on an emergency broadcast?

This is just completely ludicrous. Broadcasting where there are no listeners is useless.

Maybe they could gather the media into one room in the White House and tell them all the things the President wants them to know. I bet reporters would show up every day to something like that.

Perhaps the president wants a more direct mode of communication? I bet that has better response with the public.

I'm sure he does want that but he's not entitled to it. If he wants to use Twitter he should follow the same ToS as everyone else. If he doesn't like them he can use something else.

>public airwaves, the emergency broadcast system, the white house website

The use of all/any of these things require the cooperation of, or direct services of, private companies.

Even public legal notices, going back the full history of the country, have been published on the pages of privately owned newspapers.

If he wants to use private platforms to be heard, then he, like you, me, or any other Joe Average, should probably comply with Twitter's TOS.

Are you really excited that Zuckerberg and Dorsey get the on/off switch to a major communications channel in the US.

They already do, and have for a long time; what are you talking about?

Their control is solidifying. Does that not concern you?

I think that a coup attempt by the losing candidate concerns me more.

There's nothing about that that message that was a message of de-escalation. He literally told the insurrectionists that he loved them and that the election was a fraud.

Twitter left up the message telling people to go home, and took down the tweets saying they were special people doing important work, that the election was actually a landslide victory for him, and was being stolen.

Message of de-escalation? Did you watch the video? One moment he says to go home, the next he says the election was stolen in an unprecedented action against him.

At best it's a mixed message. If you're telling people that the election is actively being stolen, what are your expectations for their response exactly? That they say "aw shucks" and go home?

I think it means "the protest was good and legitimate but it needs to end now."

And yet that’s not quite what he said, is it?

That’s the absurd thing about Trump. His words are interpreted like a horoscope by his supporters. They mean whatever you need them to mean.

It rarely seems to have the effect of promoting healthy and respectful discourse. Instead it appears to always inflame.

I agree, and it’s not an accident, it’s about creating plausible deniability so that his base can say “he said X” when really he said Y.

“Stand down and stand by” is a prime example of this.

Luckily his opponents can easily all agree that "go home" means "don't go home".

Given his supporters stayed hours after his statement, I'll assume they had the correct interpretation of intent.

He literally called violent insurrectionist "special" people and said he loved them!

Isn't that in line with the first part of what I said? He was saying what they did was good and legitimate.

> If you're telling people that the election is actively being stolen, what are your expectations for their response exactly?

So the 4 years that Democrats said the election was stolen, and they illegally stormed the US Capitol at the Kavanaugh hearings, what should we have thought of that?

Basically every organization and politician on the left was supporting that and there was no Twitter censorship.

I see you've got your talking points in order.

Those are facts.

It's totally legitimate to say "I hate Trump and want to see him go", but it's impossible to stand on principle and say "Hey, Stacy Abrams is really in the right to say that her election was fraudulent forever" but Trump can't say the same.

It puts Twitter in the position of legitimizing certain claims of fraud and discounting others in national elections. That's frightening, and people supporting this should think what an alternate world would look like where billions of people were on Parler and not Twitter.

> "Hey, Stacy Abrams is really in the right to say that her election was fraudulent forever" but Trump can't say the same.

Yeah, that's kinda how truth and lies work.

> Basically every organization and politician on the left was supporting that

not the left. Lots of D politicians, granted. But I can't believe you seriously think that the "the election was fraudulent theatrics" (which I'll take for granted as theatrics, though a more careful treatment is warranted) of D politicians and e.g. Rachel Maddow could ever have had the same effect as these theatrics from Trump and co, which call for armed citizens to take action.

Stacy. Abrams.

> which call for armed citizens to take action.

And the citizens weren't armed. The people killed were the unarmed protestors, by the police.

We can imagine what would happen if they had a certain skin color and were protesting a different event. It isn't the reaction that would happen today.

> And the citizens weren't armed.

I've seen people on social media in the past few weeks talking about bringing weapons to DC for what happened earlier today. Enrique Tarrio, leader of the Proud Boys, was arrested a couple days ago in DC while carrying high capacity magazines [0]. A lot of pictures I've seen of people in the capital building today show them carrying heavy duty zip ties. Why did they have these? Were they planning on taking prisoners/hostages?

We've also seen the reaction to other protests in DC in the last few years. The police response today was much smaller than other recent protests.

Donald Trump's response to statues being torn down was to push for long sentences for people damaging federal property [1]. Has he also pushed for long sentences for people trespassing in the capital buildings and damaging them?

[0] https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/4135703001

[1] https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thedenverchannel.com/news/a...

Illegally stormed? What are you talking about? No one kicked down doors with pipe bombs and guns in hand at the Kavanaugh hearings.

This kind of positioning is frustratingly confusing to me. What do you personally gain exactly by saying something so obviously false?

Truly am curious what is forming the foundation of such a position you have?

Hillary Clinton conceded immediately, and the Democratic party did not launch a wave of legal challenges to the election results. The argument that the extreme Russiagate types were making was that Russian agents and bots on social media had convinced people to vote for Trump. There were none of these unbelievably absurd claims about manufactured ballots etc.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/hillary-clinton-trum...

” Hillary Clinton dismissed President Trump as an “illegitimate president” and suggested that “he knows” that he stole the 2016 presidential election in a CBS News interview to be aired Sunday.”

Sept 2019

I doubt anyone would object to Trump talking about how the election was stolen in 2022.

I would "object" to Trump doing so in the sense that I would judge it to be the rationalizing behaviour of an egomaniac. Which is exactly my reaction to the linked statements by Hillary Clinton.

It is still absurd to act like there is an equivalence between her claiming that Russian interference misled voters into choosing the "wrong" candidate, vs. Trump (a) claiming that ballots were manufactured, altered or tampered with and that actual voting infrastructure and processes are corrupt, (b) having his legal team launch a bunch of frivolous lawsuits in various states, and (c) pressuring the secretary of state of an electorally-close state to overturn election results.

Clinton's statements, as overblown as they may have been, were just an accusation of unfairness, not calling for the results to be overturned and the loser installed in office. All of the #resistance rhetoric was about the need to defeat Trump through the electoral process, or through parliamentary procedures (based on his actions after taking office). Again, there is a fundamental difference between claiming that voters were lied to, and claiming that the government itself directly interfered in the voting process without ANY remotely credible evidence to back that claim.

Trying to equate the two situations because they both involved the use of the word "illegitimate" is beyond laughable.

Wooosh.

That’s not the point.

Clinton claims election is stolen. Uncritical article written.

Trump claims election is stolen? Obvious coup attempt and a need to curtail freedoms.

One is a coordinated scheme to influence impressionable voters backed by evidence. The other is a claim of election fraud with zero evidence. Not the same thing.

If Trump claimed the election was stolen in 2022, nobody would accuse him of a coup attempt that needs freedoms curtailed. The treatment is different because the intention is different, Clinton was throwing mud while Trump seems to want to stay in power.

Clinton said the same thing from election night until now. What are you talking about?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hillary-clinton-privately-conce...

She conceded hours after polls closed. 2019 likely was not the first time she criticized Trump's legitimacy, but the intention was always different.

> and they illegally stormed the US Capitol at the Kavanaugh hearings, what should we have thought of that?

You mean ... showed up and were lawfully admitted to hearings, and then were disruptive by yelling? Or do you have something else in mind?

"Democrats want to destroy this country"

"Democrats stole the election"

"They are the enemy of the people"

etc. etc.

These are all things Trump actually says, ad verbatim, and has been repeating this for the better part of a year. If these things were true then violence would be a logical, reasonable, justified, and appropriate response to stop a hostile anti-democratic takeover of the country.

Of course, nothing of Trump's claims are true. Not even remotely. Not even a tiny kernel of truth in it.

But you just can't expect people who actually hold this worldview to quietly stay at home. I wouldn't, if this would actually be happening.

As I've said many times before, if the current path continues it's only a matter of time before there is actual real bloodshed, and Trump and his bootlickers can't just wash their hands with "but I said I they had to remain calm!"

And if you look at the cause for all of this ... it's not even a political disagreement really, it's just Trump not being mature enough to accept that a universe exists where he could lose an election. Good heavens all this ruckus for something so petty. Future historians will look back to Trump not too dissimilar to how we look back to Caligula.

They did it on purpose.

> they're all but complicit in perpetuating this

The message they removed for violating their rules stated-- after repeating the stolen election blather that he's been spinning for the last month--:

"We have to have peace. We have to have law and order we have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt. [...] We have to have peace. So go home, we love you, you're very special, you've seen what happens you've seen the way others are treated that are so bad and so evil. I know how you feel. But go home and go home in peace.

Here is a copy of the full video: https://files.catbox.moe/71gfr1.mp4

Knowing this, do you believe that it was still the right move to suspend his account over this particular video rather any of hundreds of prior cases or-- no doubt-- the hundreds of opportunities which would arise in the coming months?

> [riot? attempted coup? insurrection?]

Putsch

"A secretly plotted and suddenly executed attempt to overthrow a government"

Though this wasn't so secretly plotted.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/putsch

Do we want Twitter (or Facebook, or whatever) to "carry any authority"?

Nobody in US politics has benefited more from Twitter and Facebook than Trump himself. Anything that makes us stop relying on those as sources of fact or reasoned political discussion sounds like it has a high chance of being a good thing to me.

Presumably twitter wants to carry some authority no matter what we want. What they did is in service if their own goals.

require interconnection/adversarial interoperability then as a condition of that authority.

Require by who? How? Why?

That authority is given by users basically. And users don't really care about media health.

Twitter gets a lot of their value from all sorts of official accounts, many of which are government agencies. E.g. the last time I applied for a passport, Twitter was the only support channel available (they had a "live chat" page on their website as well, but it was broken). That's not right - what if I'd been subject to one of Twitter's arbitrary bans?

Is there a requirement to only use platforms that are available to all citizens? I imagine people can be blacklisted by ISPs and/or mobile carriers. Even a landline contract is not guaranteed, right? What they can't do is turn people away at various offices.

That said, I agree this kind of selective platform favoritism is (currently very minimally, but still) discriminatory. For example some people might not want to use Twitter for ideological reasons. (Let's say because it's a fucking cesspool that just generates tension.)

I've said it in another comment, this is a very dangerous move by Twitter. The next Trump (and there probably will be a next Trump) will know from the very beginning in his mandate to neutralise companies like Twitter.

If you mean by removing section 230, then wouldn't that just make everything much worse?

When reading up about it, it seems like websites like twitter would have to either completely remove all types of moderation or get strict enough moderation that user comments would be unfeasible to allow.

I don't see how that would accomplish anything but remove the social media sector from USA.

Although I have yet to hear anyone's theory on what it could be replaced with.

> If you mean by removing section 230

No, I think the next Trump will do what Putin did with VKontakte and will take the company directly from the owners' hands (there are numerous ways to do that even in a Western democracy, the hostile takeover has practically been invented in the US). Of course he (most probably will be a "he") won't do that directly, one of his business friends will help. Things like "removing section 230" are just syntactic sugar that keep us programmers/geeks busy by barking at the wrong tree.

They could have done it in early 2016. Then they'd be in the pocket of the establishment republicans and not the left

Trump being on Twitter is good for business. Everyday is another car crash and they’re the news station.

Trump lost so the best way to maximize attention/profit is to shake things up on Trump’s way out. Ie start applying the rules to him with enough time for him to react to it before the end of his presidency. This seems like a highly calculated move with only one motive, and it isn’t the good of the people.

>If they don't take a stand now, they're all but complicit in perpetuating this [riot? attempted coup? insurrection?]

But he's telling protesters to be peaceful, go home, and calling for respect for the law and law enforcement.

https://www.thetrumparchive.com/:

These are the things and events that happen when a sacred landslide election victory is so unceremoniously & viciously stripped away from great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long. Go home with love & in peace. Remember this day forever!

I am asking for everyone at the U.S. Capitol to remain peaceful. No violence! Remember, WE are the Party of Law & Order – respect the Law and our great men and women in Blue. Thank you!

Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!

I mean, he’s saying that but also saying the election was stolen at the same time.

As others have said, will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?

That's not a call for order.

Why is it that every time Donald Trump makes a statement like this, there are always large numbers of his supporters who believe he's still encouraging their bad behavior? I'd say he either knows what he's doing or his communication skills are dangerously bad for a politician. Am I missing a third option?

It's called "nonverbal communication", the stuff in between the words. It works.

The President often communicates via Twitter. Not sure where you'd get non verbal communication, like body language, in those cases. For the rest, do you believe he is aware of this and doing it intentionally or is he subconsciously revealing his real beliefs and intentions?

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