Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France | Hacker News Reader

Trump’s Twitter Exile Spurs Opposition from Germany, France

bloomberg.com

72 pointsFDS109 comments

Having the government govern free speech doesn't get you free speech.

If the problem is social media companies that are so large they suck up all the air in the room then solve THAT problem and enforce existing anti-monopoly laws.

It doesn't get you free speech but what it does give is power to the people to decide. Elections of those law makers. There is no avenue for the people in the current model.

I would be very wary of giving even more power to those who already have plenty of power. Also, there's no constitutional right to an audience. Everyone that gets kicked off of Twitter can continue to say anything they like, but they don't get to access the built-in audience that Twitter provides.

Says who? You? Me? Twitter? The board? The US government? The judges? The legislators? The executives? Potus?

I tend to agree with this sentiment.

Unfortunately, I think even outside the oligopolies of tech, we have another underlying issue where even in a competitive market, market consensus can arrive that runs counter to democratic ideals.

I'd be surprised if all the tech providers actively coordinated on this. I'd be more willing to believe they all saw Trump as a threat to business and an overhanging risk for their business they tackled at an opportune time. One or two set the stage for the market (Twitter and Facebook) and then the rest followed through based on observed market feedback from Twitter/Facebook's actions, arriving at a concensus to censor Trump.

To be very clear, I don’t like Trump whatsoever and think he has clearly manipulated masses of people for years. At the same time, I don't think Trump directly violated policies. He's largely acted in the questionable grey areas of culture and society to push his will and has been quite effective at it.

This really brings into question underlying foundational principles surrounding free speech limitations and free speech protections, privatized communications' role in modern political discussions (essential to democracy), how we protect against oligopies or natural market consensus that may be harmful to underlying foundations to democracy, and so forth.

In this case I think we saw the oligopies and market concensus actually help democracy by protecting against a ridiculous yet growing insurrection attempt. What happens if that control or market consensus shifts to help businesses over consumers or general citizens of the US? There's clearly a lot of unchecked power here that needs to be corralled.

The government of the United States itself is based on a separation of powers, with limited and specific ways for one branch to affect the other. You can see this in multiple ways, legislative, executive and judicial divisions, but also state vs federal. I would argue that government vs business vs the populace is another unstated but extremely important one. Given that the right of free speech is one of the primary tools both business and the populace use to regulate government I would argue that it's not worth loosening its protections. We already have plenty of tools to deal with excess business power already if we can get both government and the populace on board.

> "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.-- That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

We don't need the government to govern free speech, but defending our rights is the reason the United States government exists, according to the men who created it.

It’s also abundantly clear that the men that founded our government believed that some powers are reserved for individuals and not for governments. The ability to restrict speech is one of these.

> “ 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.”

You're saying people in power having the ability to censor free speech is free speech in itself? Uh, ok. Interesting.

> Having the government govern free speech doesn't get you free speech.

I've seen this assertion here several times, always without any evidence, so I don't even know how to begin arguing against it other then vaguely gesturing in the direction of the postal service and the supreme courts decision to enforce the first amendemnt in company towns.[1]

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama

> German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private tech companies.

Fair point, I would rather have Merkel decide what can be said than Jack Dorsey. At least Merkel was democratically elected, while Jack is... I would rather not say it, but I do recommend to people to read the book "Hatching Twitter"..

But don't Germany and France both have actual laws against offensive speech on the internet that allows the government itself to compel social media websites to delete people's content?

Their feigned concern over Twitter excercising its 1st Amendment rights seems a bit hypocritical here.

The thing about the law is that it is supposed to be applied universally; it's kinda like some kind of prerequisite for 'justice'.

> German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private tech companies.

It's the second paragraph of the article.

The US law laws for free speech, and it has societal norms, too. What norms people expect to apply in the fora they use, most prominently Facebook.

So they haven't updated their laws to match the current society's norms, and the result is that Facebook has to write rules for something approximating all of society. That cannot be simple for Facebook, and I think it's a bit cowardly of the two big parties that neither of them have really tried to bring the law into harmony with current perception of justice and acceptability.

Is "current perception" really common, or just what the loudest voices demand?

And even if it is common, in my opinion the very idea of free speech is that it may go beyond the commonly held notions of acceptability. It seems kind of pointless otherwise - what's widely accepted already shouldn't really need much protection.

Eg. penalization of blasphemy in theocratic societies surely passes the test of "freedom of speech" if you define it that way.

You can't yell fire in a crowded theater... Can you incite a riot, or hatred? What about representing fictions as fact in the news? What are the limits of satire?

The American answers to these questions aren't the same as they are in other nations.

While I don't fully agree with some of my nation's answers to these questions, at least I theoretically have a democratic voice in what those standards and laws are. But some private company in a foreign nation with foreign beliefs is unaccountable from my perspective.

Even if I boycott it, it doesn't mean much so long as my neighbors, friends, and family are using it.

"You can't yell fire in a crowded theater..."

Is it a matter of free speech though?

If you walk into a bank and say "load the bag with money, or I'll blow up the place", do you risk prosecution on the grounds of (abusing) free speech? After all what you did, essentially, was utter some words. (The bomb might never have existed).

What if the government passed a law to the effect of "you can't say the banking system is vile and corrupt because it may encourage people to rob banks"?

It's a slippery slope of sorts, and a line should be drawn, preferably grounded in some logical principle. I don't have a good answer off the top of my head; just food for thought.

"Slippery slope" is a logical fallacy.

Not necessarily - it depends on the context and the argument.

If I tell you that smoking leads to cancer, it's also a slippery slope type of argument: after all, having smoked 1, 100 or even a 1,000 cigarettes you'll still be fine, most likely.

> If I tell you that smoking leads to cancer, it's also a slippery slope type of argument

It is not. It is a statement of fact, proven by numerous studies.

Whatever the limits may be... The heart of the problem is that the answer should be derived through the local democratic process. Not imposed on you by foreigners (and that means Americans in the German and French cases).

That question of current perception is IMO a political question, and leaving it to Facebook to answer is what's wrong.

Merkel's done the right thing: She has tried to answer it, and bring the laws into line with what the Germans think currently think is just. (With which I may or may not agree, it doesn't matter, I'm not German.) Her attempt may or may not be a good attempt, but she did try. The Americans talk about the first amendment and turn Facebook into something that looks ever more like a combined lawmaker and court.

I think the difference is that while it may not be entirely practical to replace Twitter or Facebook as the primary means of discourse, it is certainly more practical than replacing the government. Twitter and Facebook imposing their own flavors of information censorship is a lot less dangerous than the government doing it universally.

You're raising a strawman. Replacing government is not necessary, as Merkel proved by example.

Merkel's government was able to propose law changes and have them be voted on by the legislature. Replacing government was not needed.

I think you have this backwards. Once a government establishes censorship there's no going back from it, and nowhere for private citizens to escape it. Private individuals or companies censoring their own platforms is far less serious since, ideally, there are many ways to legally escape it.

Actually what I'm saying is that if the voters want either censorship or after-the-speech rules, then establishing that as part of the political process is much better than establishing it by having the same voters (in their capacity as Facebook's customers and audience) push Facebook to do the job. That it could be evaded is IMO irrelevant if it usually isn't. If people largely follow the law and use the legal process, then the law works.

Which you can see in Germany — people use the legal machinery to regulate speech on Facebook. Publish a swastika on Facebook and people will complain about you to the police (perhaps via Facebook), and the prosecutor will apply the law of the land. That you could evade it is true, that most people trust the law is significant.

You think that the "voters" should decide what is acceptable speech. Just by consensus, "acceptable free speech" can be determined by 60% of the people in the society.

Merkel's government proved nothing. Certainly not that government-mandated censorship is any more altruistic than regular government censorship.

There's a strong fear right now that the EU countries are devolving right back into their old authoritarian ways.

That’s the point that you seem to be missing. Europe has controls over speech...and they’re still concerned over what’s happening in the US.

You could spin that the other way: "wow, even countries that have _actual laws_ against offensive speech think that Twitter's ban of Trump was unreasonable - Twitter must be overreacting to what he actually said."

As the article says free speech is regulated by law and shall not be restringed by a corporate decision. Usually free speech is incompatible when it offends an individual, and it will be restringed only after a judicial process takes place. The issue is that social networks have no right to do it.

Not only that, Merkel's party is a significant driver in laws and regulations that reduce user internet anonymity.

Considering that multiple politicians voiced this opinion at surprisingly similar time this seems like some coordinated PR thing. They probably just realised that the same could happen to them and that they might have their communication channels cut off when they inevitably try to break up the big US tech giants

> "multiple politicians voiced this opinion at surprisingly similar time this seems like some coordinated PR thing"

It's not "surprisingly similar" when a lot of people start putting on jackets when it gets cold. Reactions to a common cause does not require coordinated action.

The same exact thing can be said of the account suspensions/removals.

You can have free speech without anonymity.

Both Macron and Merkel seem to be concerned that private companies are deciding who gets an online presence, not an elected government and/or courts:

> German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private tech companies.

>But don't Germany and France both have actual laws against offensive speech on the internet

So does the US. Try "I'm going to kill the US president" (maybe with a bit more specifics) and see how long you remain free. The US may have a bit freer speech than is normal, but there's no absolute free speech

You will stay freer longer than you would expect, you will get a visit from Federal agents but that comment is unlikely to raise to the level of a True Threat thus would be protected under the 1st amendment,

You may get added to watch lists, and federal agents may take a closer look at your life which could result in other charges or problems but it would not be that comment itself that violated US law

Yes, Germany has laws against some speech. But, even though I am no lawyer, the last tweets I see on thetrumparchive.com should be legal here. The only one I am not sure about is "Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd" (insults can be illegal in Germany).

exactly, law rules, not Twitter or Facebook, they aren't justice, they aren't judges

Agreed, France at least (which I know best, being french) is far from being a model of virtue on free speech. There are numerous laws and ever expanding restrictions against free speech.

It would be nice if the outcome of this shitstorm were the introduction and enforcement of right to not be removed at will from these services. They are pretty much monopolies now and what worked when they were small is causing too much damage to others as they are big.

Clearly censoring political speech is an issue that cuts right to the heart of democracy. The idea that corporations should be in control of public discourse is foreign to us. Government embodies the will of the people through democracy enabled by free and fair discourse and so it has the sole authority to set the rules of discourse in the name of the people and there is no devious feedback loop at all.

> The idea that corporations should be in control of public discourse is foreign to us.

This has been the case since the founding f the nation. Those businesses which controlled the printing presses, radio, and then television transmitters have always controlled the public discourse. Add datacenters to that list.

Checks and balances. Power must be distributed as widely as possible because concentration of power will always eventually lead to abuses. The problem in the US is that for decades, the executive branch of the government has been getting too powerful relative to the other branches, especially the legislature. At the same time, too much power has accrued to big companies and ultra-wealthy individuals. We've been seeing and will continue to see the consequences of these long term trends.

Right now the discomfort, if not outright outrage over the Twitter and FB bans tells you that they have long crossed into the space where they are a utility, and that means they need to be subject to extensive regulations, not unlike airlines and telecom companies.

The modern state is based on the exclusive authority of the state to be violent, and the final dispenser of rights.

When a private utility takes away the right to digital expression, which is a pretty fundamental right in the 2020s, one could make a pretty solid case that Trump's free speech rights have been taken away by private individuals or corps without a court ruling on it.

Digital rights are (at the moment) not covered by any of the articles in the constitution, nor is it covered by any UN or multi-lateral conventions, so this event may lead to some changes.

The point here is not about whether it was right or wrong to muzzle Trump & his supporters, but whether a private corp has the same rights as a court to affect individual freedom.

I guess they're concerned on having private companies deciding what should be considered as free speech or not.

Let's see what will come from this.

I don’t get the rationale used there. A president is not forced to use Twitter or any other social media. If they choose to use it then they have to abide by the rules of the platform, and the platform should impose the rules as they see fit. Forcing the platform to change the rules because of a special person is a slippery slope.

That worked before these platforms were defacto monopolies. Now that they are, there should be different rules. When twitter or Facebook remove someone, it has a huge impact on the individual at no cost to the tech company. With their size, there should be responsibilities to society too, not just shareholders.

Right. The President of the United States has the "Bully pulpit" from which to talk. This Twitter thing was because we had a person in office who ignored the dignity of office in favor of tweeting because he didn't like his people telling him he shouldn't say certain things.

He never should've been tweeting while in office in the first place.

He does, uniquely, have alternatives:

https://babylonbee.com/news/trump-circumvents-twitter-ban-wi...

I wonder if there is a decision that can make everyone happy. If social media companies didn't do anything, they would get blamed for not doing anything to prevent what's happened in the Capitol building. If they do something, then the freedom of speech argument comes in.

Not an expert on freedom of online speech by any means, but how come private companies saying what the US president does is violation of their policy is a freedom of speech issue? When this happens to an ordinary user of the platform, is it freedom of speech issue as well? You accept terms and conditions when you signup, it's as simple as that. Why being the US president should give you right to be exempt from that policy?

If US president wants to talk, it has its official channels, he can organize meeting every day that they can host 100s of journalists. If US president wants he can write whatever he wants at his website. I really don't understand why political leaders continuously picture things like social media websites are the only medium the president can talk at?

I have criticism for the social media sites tho, if the president of where I'm from was doing what Trump has been doing I'm pretty sure they wouldn't give a damn and wouldn't take any actions. If social media companies want people to believe to their policies, they must apply them to everyone.

Had Trump not been President, he would have been ejected long ago for violating Twitter standards and terms.

One could argue that it was unreasonable for Twitter to give him special extra leeway compared to other users, up until it finally decided it did not have to continue making special concessions for him.

Of course the tech companies which provide platforms must do some enforcement of the content being presented by its users. If that content is illegal in a given jurisdiction, then the tech company can face penalties or complete shutdown if it does not make an effort to police its users.

The difficulty comes in deciding what speech should be allowed and which should be suppressed. Even without the governmental legal jeopardy the companies face, the US is a very litigious land. Anyone with a motivated lawyer or enough money can sue the platform for enabling speech that they find personally damaging. And of course with content "owned" by an entity, that entity can sue the platform for allowing their content to be distributed illegally.

If [edit typo carification: if you] setup an account on xing.com (German LinkedIn-like service) and put as your profile description that the Holocaust never happened, you can be sure the platform will suppress your speech or kick you off completely. It is hypocritical for Merkel to point at Twitter when she surely supports similar tech powers locally.

You don't have guaranteed freedom of speech.

You only have your speech protected from government infringement.

Twitter is not the government, and you waived your rights in their terms of service.

Giving society complete freedom is like asking for a body to exist without an immune system--cancerous ideas and movements will exist unchecked and feast on more of society.

Stop. Saying. You. Need. More. Freedom.

Like most defenses of tech censorship, this is really an defense of any kind of censorship, whether by private companies or the government. If there's really no way of dealing with "cancerous ideas" other then censorship, then why entrust this vital job to tech companies?

The republicans are being banned from: Amazon, Apple store, Discord, facebook, google play, instagram, pinterest, reddit, shopify, snapchat, tiktok, twitch, twitter, and youtube.

Many of these weren't places trump or republicans really were. They are just banning trump supporters.

As republicans left those platforms, big tech also removed the new place Parler in a coordinated method. With shortage on servers, they aren't going to be getting back up and running anytime soon.

At the end of the day this isn't about censorship. Trump for all it matters could post to his own website. He's not stopped from getting out his message.

The more important reality here is that big tech clearly played their cards. What used to be a political divide that was entirely democrats is now both.

If you thought the political divide in the USA was bad before the election. It's now worse than ever. This is about silencing political opposition.

Oh and in the next 2 years you can expect the NRA will be disbanding. Right to bear arms will be getting shut down.

What do you think the republicans are going to do? I don't know. Will it be civil war? I dont think so.

How about the election in 2 years? Anyone think there will be a free and fair election?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Paradox of Human Rights

Popper also specifically said: "I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise."

A large part of Trump's message is that the election results are fraudulent, despite having no evidence to support that claim. Instead, he writes on social media to incite violence at our nation's capitol building... Now we are at risk of overturning an election based on a mere accusation - aren't we past the point where our president is willing to have a rational argument?

I'm looking past Trump. The tech cartel can not only decide which party wins elections, they can decide which candidates within the winning party keep their seats. And they are getting more and more desperate to shape politics as they run from anti-trust. For me its too much power.

A fair enough opinion, and a worthy discussion. But this particular issue of Trump’s Twitter suspension is clearly about not giving delusional lunatics more fodder for their actions, rather than silencing Trump.

Edit: I’m not siding with or against Twitter here. Whether their decision was wise or not certainly needs to be discussed. I’m just pointing out that “silencing the lunatic in the White House” isn’t the only potential explanation for their suspension of Trump’s account.

I think it's dangerous to start banning politicians from using a public (even if privately owned) platform, especially when it plays into their narrative of oppression. Let him incriminate himself further until he's no longer a public official, then ban his personal account.

I especially don't agree with their decision to hide all of his past posts. If they allowed it to stay up for so long, it should remain permanently as part of the political context of this time period.

My issue here is that while I agree Trump is goofy and id like to see him go, the definitions of what is and is not dangerous ultimately is up to a handful of unelected corporate employees. Those definitions are and will more so align with corporate strategy and a bottom line. And while its not a freedom of speech issue in the strict legal sense, it is by a practical matter.

I agree that is an issue, and should be discussed. I didn’t mean to imply Twitter’s decision was plainly correct.

And you think that banning him didn't do that? I am supposed to believe that they were so considered that he might say something that might cause some actions, but they didn't considered at all what their action of banning him will cause?

That’s worthy of discussion. I’m not siding with or against Twitter here. Just saying the issue isn’t as one-sided as many might like to believe it is.

"But this particular issue of Trump’s Twitter suspension is clearly about not giving delusional lunatics more fodder for their actions"

I believe that the effects of this permaban (and the seemingly coordinated effort to purge the Internet of Parler) will be pretty much the opposite, reenforcing paranoia about unelected tyrants more powerful than any office holder in the U.S.

Trump can still write whatever he wants. He can still publish through the White House press. He can contact press, or communicate as American Presidents have always done. He is not being forcibly gagged as a whole. He has freedom to speak, just not where he pleases.

I feel like people are conflating "Freedom of Speech" with the "Freedom of Platform". This is an important difference. If I send a letter to Bloomberg or The New York Times, no one would find it surprising or wrong when they decided to not publish it (for ANY reason). If I violate their commenter section policies, they remove it and no one blinks. They decide what's on their platform without answer.

I am not against the idea of governments guaranteeing certain freedoms and access to platforms, but they currently do not exist as far as I understand. Saying some right has been newly violated is somewhat silly, especially given that the subject in question is a member of a political party who has fought tooth-and-nail to preserve this exact right for businesses -- to arbitrarily chose who they do business with. That is what we're contending with.

TL;DR: The discussion needs to be recentered.

What if the EU collectively built a government-run social network?

EDIT: This is a hypothetical situation, meant to evoke thought.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but Twitter didn't shut down an elected president's account (@potus), they permanently banned this particular individual's personal account.

But yeah, unchecked corporate power coming home to roost. Personally I believe Nazis should be gagged not given megaphones, but this can affect anyone.

Personally, I think Twitter et al. are acting on advice of counsel, not wanting to be considered an accessory to insurrection. It's telling that despite being called out on their hypocrisy (allowing trump to incite violence for years), the bans come now, after the balance of power in the US shifted to DEM.

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but Twitter didn't shut down an elected president's account (@potus)

That's wrong. They shutdown the ability to post on @potus and deleted tweets[0].

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-election-trump-twitte...

Hilarious that Europe, who takes a much more measured approach to free speech has concerns with big tech’s censorship.

When Europe starts to worry about free speech that says something as to how far America has fallen.

> German Chancellor Angela Merkel objected to the decisions, saying on Monday that lawmakers should set the rules governing free speech and not private tech companies.

This is about who gets to make the decisions, not what the decisions are.

Right. That was her point. Free speech is at risk when it’s Zuckerberg making the call.

Does that mean if I call my boss names and he fires me, he is censoring my free speech? Now apply that to Facebook. Facebook isn't censoring free speech and the definition of free speech doesn't mean you can say whatever you want and not have any repercussions.

I'd be much more worried about governments telling me what I can/can't say, rather than private companies not letting me use their platforms to say it.

lawmakers != government

So you'd prefer being silenced by people who you have no control over, rather than a government you elected?

I'm not being silenced. I can setup a website easily or my own Mastodon, or whatever else. If I really wanted to make it more censorship-resistant I'd use IPFS and a decentralized JS framework for real-time communication.

What's Twitter supposed to do? There's likely real legal liability here.

Trump has said whatever he wanted on Twitter, true or not, for the better part of a decade. When that speech translated into violence that killed at least 6 including a police officer, what's a company supposed to do?

Also, Free speech protections don't apply to private platforms. Only a government run equivalent of Twitter would be.

Twitter has zero liability except their profits and an anti-trust investigation which I’m sure the new president will be a lot less likely to pursue at this point.

And did you just call out 6 deaths which include a guy who tased himself, a cop who died of a random stroke and a woman shot in the throat for being there? Come on.

And yes, the 1st amendment restricts the govt but it’s hypocritical as hell for a company to espouse it’s commitment to free speech all the while censoring undesirable opinions.

> Twitter has zero liability except their profits and an anti-trust investigation which I’m sure the new president will be a lot less likely to pursue at this point.

I'm not sure I agree

> And did you just call out 6 deaths which include a guy who tased himself, a cop who died of a random stroke and a woman shot in the throat for being there? Come on.

I also left out the 25 injured officers

> And yes, the 1st amendment restricts the govt but it’s hypocritical as hell for a company to espouse it’s commitment to free speech all the while censoring undesirable opinions.

The opinions were 100% fine until the platform was used as a way to rally supporters to violence. Twitter has gone out if it's way to carve out harassment exemptions for the President who has used the platform for everything from outright lies to falsely accusing people of murder because they spoke out against him.

This was a case of someone using Twitter in a way that would lead to any of us being banned years ago. Nobody spoke up when someone I know got banned from Twitter for retweeting a joke about Antifa planning to launch an attack on small business owners.

Wait — there's a very important question here — why should Twitter face prosecution if news networks that aired hours of uncut Trump speeches do not? Should every organization that has published or platformed possibly violence-inciting speech from Trump (without heavy editorialization) be on the hook as well? Where does it end?

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