The deplatforming of a president: An unprecedented week for the tech industry

I think there are speech issues involved here, but before you go too far down the road of comparing it to your idyllic childhood, remember the media context of the 80s and 90s. Specifically that National News controlled by professional journalistic outlets which set the tone and heavily moderated what the public saw.

In other words we replaced a pretty gatekept national media environment with one that was a civil liberties free for all on social media. Now the pendulum is perhaps feeling like it’s going back the other way where Major social media now will be more moderated around what’s considered a core set of values and facts, a little closer in feel to the boring 6:30 news of our childhood.

I don’t say that to draw judgment either way, but only to give context.

It is worth pointing out that Twitter had concrete near-term reasoning around incitement of further attacks on the capitol that they included in their reasoning - incitement is generally not protected speech (even though of course Twitter is a private platform and not restricted by the First Amendment). It is a legitimate concern that Trump would tacitly or explicitly encourage further mob attacks on the Capitol:

"Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.

As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so."

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

I also understand, even if it's not consistent, that Twitter would maintain a policy-violating account if it is that of a major world leader on public interest grounds alone. Once he is no longer the head of government, such reasons no longer apply. Practically speaking, this reason for maintaining the account the last two weeks of his presidency was, I suspect, outweighed by the immediacy of the worry on further insurrection attempts. I fall into the small camp of people (it seems?) that thinks Twitter was right not to have suspended his account earlier, and is right to now.

Compared to all the other places we could discuss the recent affairs online, HN is a unique place because we are the ones who’ve built the big tech industry. So we’re in the unique position of having to grapple with whether we’re failing the American people, or if we’re actually enabling good moral and ethical decisions

Personally I fall more on the former side. Whatever your stance, the tech industry is going through a deep existential moment right now

Let’s remember WHY we must fight censorship: not for others but for our (future) selves.

Once censorship becomes acceptable and free speech no longer a principle, the power moves from the speaker(s) to the censors. Today they may be good guys on our side and stop various evil leaders and hateful villains from gathering followers but someday they may be a different kind of "good" guys - guys very intent on stopping us from "undermining the security of the state" or "spreading immoral ideas" or "smearing upstanding citizens".

There is no way to guarantee "good" censors (we can’t even agree what those accepted ideas are or that they will not change) so we MUST fight for freedom of speech.

I wonder how these firms coordinate actions like this?

What baffles me about this is how people can call for private companies to be obligated to broadcast the direct messages of government leaders, and do it in the name of free speech.

Really? You want media to be state-run in the US?

You would actually need to repeal the first amendment to make that happen.

It's weird how people treat social media as somehow very different than other types of media.

If someone in your town distributed pamphlets telling people to burn down the courthouse, they'd probably faces charged or be censured. Most people would agree with this, or at least, the idea that there are consequences for some kinds of speech actions. Freedom of speech has limits whether it's First amendment or just the general idea of freedom.

Why is social media any different?

The real question is why are govt officials using public companies to communicate to the public? The shareholders who drive profits can ultimately do whatever they want to the accounts.

It gives too much power to unelected officials and sets a side channel of unofficial but official communication which is confusing for citizens.

Right or wrong, power dynamics and censorship aside:

Remember that these platforms:

* have a lot of insight that we don't, even into private (generally unencrypted) messages

* are most likely in some kind of talks around how to handle certain things as an industry

* have bidirectional information channels with 3-letter agencies

I'm thinking they have caught wind of something that they want to prevent from happening or escalating. For example, other events (terrorist attacks? coup?) are being planned, and recruiting and coordination is taking place on their platforms.

If The Public is interested in the existence of Public media, like a digital town-square soapbox, then we could use Public resources to make that exist. Like a public-broadcasting version of social media.

But if someone like a President will use private services like Twitter then they're choosing to subject themself to the rules and whims of that private service. It was a weird thing to do in the first place. There are official communication channels for the President to use.

To me this is not crazy nor bad. He is actively calling for a coup. He is actively calling for his followers to harm people. It is a clear line.

In that case he should be stopped at all costs by all platforms.

If he had clearly said go march and do not try to "murder the press" or go march and not smash peoples heads in with blunt objects you would have a leg to stand on.

There is not an issue here. He is a danger.

I am damn sure that National security apparatus in India is running around - and planning their own splinter-net. Why do you need American intermediaries whose Terms of Service that @PMOIndia have to communicate mostly with Indians.

Within American set up, we can talk about SV and its biases, but people in New Delhi, Tel Aviv etc. who consider them regional powers are burning midnight oil, to avoid fate of Trump.

Its either Government that regulates the Big Tech or Big Tech regulate the Government, in America - the die is cast, but others, do not want foreign national curate their culture and national dialogue.

The firewalls will be up in no time.

I'm very pessimistic about speech and Democracy in the United States and I believe the tech industry is contributing to a real witches brew in our society.

The consequences will play out in unpredictable and dangerous ways.

The focus is all on Trump today, but even politically distant voices are being silenced by this corporate-government alliance. For example in the most recent Ron Paul Liberty Report - they note that the Youtube censors have warned the Liberty Report and it is aggressively collecting email addresses anticipating a ban.

I favor free, unregulated speech and I recognize that I am a dinosaur.

Horrible precedent, before the dominance of big tech was implicit and now it has become explicit, in the next years we will see much more of this along with new propaganda to sell censorship.

I have heard it said that the test of a good governmental system is whether you would be ok with letting those you politically oppose run it. I feel somewhat similar here. Are we really comfortable with the tremendous power and editorial discretion that the large tech companies have, if we step back and look at it in a vacuum rather than through the emotionally charged lens that comes with Trump? I don’t know what the right solution is, or if there even is one in the near future. I do feel, however, that vesting the extreme control of information into a handful of companies seems very unhealthy for democracy to me.

idm Twitter blocking Trump but I mind the selectiveness. They really should go after everyone otherwise it's total meaningless in my eyes.

The official government account of the Chinese Embassy in US is still tweeting about how good and liberating are the Xianjing camps and only the west are not understanding them.

Ali Khamenei also tweeting about Holocaust denial. How come he is even allowed to use Twitter considering the sanctions?

And more others.

It's just really weird.

I kinda think he was better off constrained.

Now, we've unleashed him and his followers (80 million to be exact) onto all manner of third party social networks, almost all of which prominently feature racism.

Way to expand the racism market, <insert your choice of epithet about nearsighted liberals here>

They won't come after Biden. That guy wrote the Patriot Act. Well, the original, not the compromised second draft. And he's now proposing an expanded version. All true. Thanks for your "votes".

Anyway, good luck!

An unprecedented week for the tech industry! Is that what we're calling it lol?

A week in which more Americans died from covid than any week prior. The day after the insurrection over 4k people died from covid, a disease that half the country thinks is a hoax. The lame duck president (who has done his very best to spread covid) whipped an armed mob into attacking the nation's capitol building during the vote to confirm his opponent. Trump accomplished that final betrayal the old fashioned way, with a stage and a podium.

But yes, the industry sure is seeing some unprecedented stuff. Banning the president from Twitter is the biggest thing HN has ever seen because a large chunk of its users are trapped in the tiniest bubble in the country.

It's terrifying and humiliating that corporations can do such things to a President nonetheless. And not just some banana President, but one that presides over an absolute superpower. USA looks more like decentralized China by doing this.

No issues with Trump have been fixed, dirt has been swept under the rug. Silencing someone doesn't undo their words and, ironically, it tends to amplify their message.

Impeach him, sue him, shutdown the government, rally against him persistently and systematically. That is the right way. But it takes effort, much, much, much more effort than hitting the ban button and calling it day (and achieving nothing in the process).

These corps play by the FOTM. Thinking that they aligned with your just cause is crazy. Have you forgotten they cuddle with China as well?

corporate totalitarianism... but for good? 2020 is weird. The Government needs enough autonomy and power to regulate corporations. Of course, corps send in their lobbyists to control government. They'll live in a constant tug of war. What's scary is what happens when they're both evil.

I'm not sure how many more times we need to "debate" this on HN. These articles just get posted over and over, and then people hop straight into the comments to vent their feelings which aren't really unique to the article in any way.

I'm not clear what the point is, the types of comments I see in these threads aren't remotely persuasive, and I imagine the people who do have more nuanced takes have little interest in participating in these little melees. It just seems like a little whirlpool for angry people to shout their frustrations into the void again.

This is unprecedented. For the first time in US history, there is active censorship towards the sitting president. Some people say the first amendment doesn't apply to "private enterprise" - but it does apply to the press, which Big Tech replaced with their platforms.

Twitter & Facebook act as

a) De facto spaces of prominent public debate

b) De facto news content (press)

De jure, they pretend they're in private tech business (to escape legal responsibility of a +b)

Section 230 gives them special immunity to censor any content they like, which makes them the arbiters of truth. This is incompatible with the US constitution, at last in spirit.

This is a reversion to feudalism. Roads in Europe used to be private property of Lords, you had to pay to use them. The National Republics (Nationalism) along with the Constitution (Constitutionalism) had the objective to define & uphold de jure the public space (from feudalism).

Right now, you're paying (indirectly) to use the roads of discourse and information dissemination, controlled by Twitter, Facebook and Google. This cannot continue in a democracy worth its name, and it is the opposite of what the US stands for.

[0] some quotes from https://twitter.com/_benoux_/status/1347155317516365826?s=21