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Comment by int_ | Hacker News Reader

Trump is no longer profitable for Twitter.

Really? He would seem to be the king of all whales. His extremes draw people to the platform. No doubt countless seniors only ever installed the app so that they could follow trump. Like it or not, he draws in new users.

How about legal exposure, or loss of political goodwill (especially by those who are in positions to provide oversight)? Profitability is impacted by more factors than just raw "number of eyeballs"

Well, the funny thing is they're mostly protected from legal exposure by Section 230, that thing Trump keeps trying to get rid of.

In 2017 I saw Twitter advertising in Tokyo’s metro with Trump tweets. Even if their PR said “we don’t like it but it’s in the public interest,” it was obviously in their interest. Twitter has been mentioned daily in the news for the past 5 years, they turned a huge profit thanks the guy.

The only reason they’re acting now is that their excuse is about to expire. If they found another good excuse, Trump would stay.

Back then, it was in everyones interesst. Trump caused controversy, that drove traffic. Same applied for mainstream media and TV, everyone covered im because he drove engangement. The world would be much different, if everybody would just not have covered him and his rallies already in 2016. Everybody did, so.

Covering doesn’t mean letting him speak directly to the public. CNN also let him speak live after the election, but when he started speaking nonsense they interrupted the feed.

What’s happening this week isn’t new, it’s been happening for years.

The election doesn’t delete Trump’s Twitter followers. If anything, twitter’s actions show this was never about profit... but about the fact that no media outlet in the US has ever outright censored a sitting president.

He absolutely is. Trump is the only reason I actually go to twitter at all. The rest of the website is effectively a trash dump. Also if you haven't figured it out. Trump is likely to radically reform the entire republican party. Just because he lost the election doesn't mean he is going out of politics.

Recent events have forced Republican politicians to choose sides clearly rather than sitting on the fence hoping he will go away. This will hopefully severely limit Trumps power in the Republican party in the future.

He will probably not leave politics entirely, though. That would mean being forced to admit that he lost which is beyond his ego.

half the country hangs on trump's every word. to look at it from the other side, consider two Democrats running for office. one gets Obama's endorsement the other gets tarred and feathered. which one stands a better chance to win?

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