Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dredmorbius | Hacker News Reader

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The environment has changed.

Previously theoretic risks are now manifest, demonstrated, and cognizable.

Actual riots, insurrection, disruption of government, assaults on law enforcement, damage to government buildings, theft of government property, violence, and deaths, have occurred.

The instigator is unrepentent and non-credible in what are at best tepid disavowals.

The totality of context has changed. If "he has tweeted worse things in the past", the undeniable impact is abundantly clear.

The ban is absolutely warranted. If anything, it is many years too late.

Twitter specifically address these points:

Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks. After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.

From TFA

I agree with the action and disagree with their justification.

Because of the weakness of their justification, this could be further gasoline on the fire for his 74 million supporters. I frequently find myself having to argue with said supporters, and I can't argue that this justification makes sense other than to say... well they should have banned him before hand.

It feels like they were looking for almost anything remotely shitty that Trump said to ban him. More specifically, they are looking for a reason to ban him based on saying anything not in support of the next administration, because of his supporters storming the capital. I can see the chain of logic here, I just think it's a little weak and being selectively enforced.

Edited: to make more sense hopefully.

His supporters are already on fire.

This is reducing repeat ignition and stilling winds fanning flames.

See Chamberlain on the effectiveness of appeasement.

Calling everyone who voted for Trump a supporter isn’t accurate. I know people who strongly dislike him and voted for him over Biden. As a lower bound you can estimate around 8% of voters will donate to each campaign which clearly marks them as supporters. Perhaps as many as 40% of those 74 million votes come from strong supporters who might not donate but will advocate for him among friends and family etc.

However, mostly it’s based on party affiliation where people voting against him in a primary would vote for him in a general election.

Good point.

To kind of latch onto what you said, I'd say that there is 60% of those 74 million who would have benefited from a Twitter ban which was well justified. They are more on the fence and can be persuaded by the tides of big business and what seems like an over reaction on their part. The 40% are probably hopelessly convinced of anything that Republicans say.

Can casting your one-every-four-years vote for a presidential candidate not be accurately construed as showing support?

"I do not support this man but I did want him to be President, and cast my ballot for him" is a concept I can't understand at least.

There are 3 options vote for A, vote for B, or abstain in one way or another.

When you have such a limited number of options their isn’t an obvious reason for the choice. Both loving A or hating B more than you hate A can result in an A vote. With millions of voters some people are going to vote based on silly crap like a candidates name being similar to someone they know, or a coin flip. Hell, you can expect at least a few mistakes.

PS: 1,865,620 people voted libertarian, presumably a few felt the way you do but when you know someone isn’t getting elected that opens up even more options.

If a person were so concerned about not being a Trump supported, like you mentioned they could have abstained or voted for some other person that's not Trump. At the end, voting for Trump is support for Trump no matter what convoluted logic was used to arrive at that decision.

Tell the trump supporters you know that this is about imminent threat. trump's words just started a historic riot, and it looks like he may say more things that spark unrest in the immediate future. This isn't about both sides or BLM. He just, two days ago, caused insurrection. It would be negligent to just watch him do it again

I’m a Trump supporter who voted for him twice. I condemn what happened in the capital as well as the BLM riots that burned down businesses. I’m okay with both sides being met with gas and rubber bullets. All of trumps supporters aren’t lunatics. I would say the people who stormed the capital are maybe 10% of his support in the type of person who would attack someone over politics.

Trump called for this gathering to happen, and when it got way out of control, and then became an invasion of the capitol, he did absolutely nothing effective to stop it. He watched the whole thing unfold on live TV, with innumerable ways to communicate with that crowd, and he did nothing except tell them “be less violent, and I love you”.

So if you are still a “Trump supporter” at this point, I really don’t see how you can also say you “condemn what happened in the capitol”. Because Trump didn’t.

Hmmm I guess I would be better to say I’m a conservative libertarian who voted for trump twice. I’m happy to see the back of Trump and as his presidency progressed I realized he nor the gop align with my views. I really see how fake both sides are and have become jaded with politics.

I’ve told all of my maga friends Trump is a clown all along. But again the left really didn’t have any issues with riots this summer and now everyone’s clutching their pearls.

Don't you think that one of the most important changes in recent weeks is that he's now a lame duck, he doesn't really have power anymore. This is why he's been losing more an more allies since election day. Powerful figures and institutions can change their stance now and this is a preemption of his exit when the next president takes over.

I'm basically saying, it's a whole lot easier to be "brave" and deal a blow to a lame duck than a live tiger.

> he's now a lame duck, he doesn't really have power anymore

you can try telling that to the 5 dead people from the sacking of the Capitol I guess

> Actual riots, insurrection, disruption of government, assaults on law enforcement, damage to government buildings, theft of government property, violence, and deaths, have occurred.

This describes the past half-year in Portland, Seattle, and more sporadically in many other cities.

I believe that no accounts on the Left: organizing, not merely advocating - have been permanently shut down.

So, I'm very skeptical that anything legitimate has changed. It feels very political.

This. There are groups like Rose City Antifa in Portland or EDM (Every Day March) in Seattle that regularly engage in widespread violence, disruption, and illegal behavior. They organize and advertise and evangelize their events on all the typical social media platforms. They haven’t been given even a warning, let alone a ban. And yes, people have died due to these groups’ actions.

The environment has changed, most significantly in that Trump is no longer going to be in control of the DoJ in a few weeks. This isn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, this is the last straw before the straw dispenser was relieved of power and no one had to accept straw from them anymore.

I think you're right, that this is actually a simple calculus about power and money (as it always has been and always will be). It's really the thing that grinds my gears when I forget myself: The duplicity and virtue signaling. The ad economy having brought back yellow journalism and endless emotional pleas. The internet being used in massive propaganda campaigns and allowing children and non-citizens a voice in forums that people perceive as our civic spaces -- even though they aren't -- because it is actually impossible to "moderate" the massive social media platforms (despite their promises). I like to think that I'm up on classical Stoic philosophy, but I still struggle sometimes to divorce myself from the fervor. It's so human.

My guess is that we are quickly approaching a point in time when culture will start to swing the other way, and the internet will become this thing that people don't take seriously, haha much like it was in the 90s. That, and some combination of that and censorship. And the tech monopolies absolutely will not survive the level of influence they have now, even if they think they are playing it safe by supporting a particular political faction which happens to be popular at the moment. I think things are going to change fairly rapidly in this direction because it turns out being connected constantly is actually pretty awful in most of the ways that count. Thankfully, however, it seems most folks understand this in a kind of unspoken, visceral way. The same sort of "self-policing" feeling you get when you've wasted 12 hours straight playing Skyrim. It just feels dirty.

> And the tech monopolies absolutely will not survive the level of influence they have now, even if they think they are playing it safe by supporting a particular political faction which happens to be popular at the moment.

I hope you’re right but I have my doubts. Currently I see the left waging total war when it comes to censorship and control of allowed/disallowed speech. Their consolidation of power and influence (and their attack on foundations like free speech principles) has been rapid, and pervasive. When I look at the left trying to inject things like the factually incorrect “1619 Project” into schools, I see them trying to make their temporary power gains permanent by propagandizing, so that there is no avenue by which different thought can enter the Overton window.

Maybe I’m being overly cynical but I don’t see a way back from this. I foresee an increasing amount of leftist authoritarianism as the future of the US, because there won’t be a balancing politic on the other side to moderate us.

I agree with you on the surface, but in reading your comment, I'm reminded of feeling exactly the same way after Trump was elected, just in the opposite sense. And thinking about it, this was the same sense I had about things after Obama and even way back with Dubya. The internet really is a communications revolution. I keep saying that we are under assault, our attention spans attrited by the manufacturers of mass media products for clicks (and by our friends and neighbors who are engaging in this kind of feedback loop), and as I mentioned in another comment, it's difficult to separate myself from it and view it objectively. But in talking with you here and others elsewhere, it's clear to me that this is a pervasive issue across time, and I feel strongly that the internet as it exists today and the culture we have as a result simply can't continue. Whether that means that some sort of regulation which turns social media into television controlled by a few select entities, or culture shifting and people lose trust in the information they see online, I can't say, but this level of mass media sensationalism is clearly unsustainable politically. The most powerful political factions have built and maintained their power on the basis of appearing stable to their supporters, and Twitter has (perhaps unknowingly or shortsightedly) sent a message loud and clear to every political faction on the planet. Anybody with real power has every incentive to destroy that kind of political influence. I'd pay a lot of money to watch a documentary on Twitter's reasoning through this decision.

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