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Comment by speeder | Hacker News Reader

You believe you hear his views all the time.

I am not from USA, and not a trump supporter, still been trying to figure out what is going on, and noticed some patterns.

1. Media loves taking stuff out of context, not just with Trump mind you.

2. Not only big tech is censoring Trump, but normal media too, for example more than once channels refused to air live presidential addresses, sometimes they aired but with comments, or they waited for a while and then aired it edited.

I saw other day here in HN people saying BigTech kicking Trump off their platform was fine because he wouldn't be silenced, since he has the Whitehouse official system of contacting with the press... thing is, the press is now delibetarely ignoring him too, so you have a situation where both BigTech and Press is not letting his words through, isn't that censorship?

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So your argument is that private companies should be forced to amplify a person's speech?

The genius of the first amendment is that yes you can spout whatever vile garbage you want but no one is forced to listen to you. It is also a form of speech to not reproduce someone else's speech.

I am not from USA so not talking in the legal sense of things.

Still I must ask, alright, nobody is obliged to listen to someone, but what about the rights of those that WANT to listen? 70+ million people voted for Trump after all, is it right to prevent them from hearing Trump? He was also banned from e-mail plataforms too, so basically all his channels to talk with his voters are down, except normal mail, that was crippled a long time ago by the congress (normal mail has an absurd law where all new hires must have their pension pre-funded 50 years in advance... this is what caused all the mailing woes in US lately, wasn't necessarily Trump's fault as many claimed)

The White House website is still up and running for anyone to visit.

> channels refused to air live presidential addresses, sometimes they aired but with comments

You suggest to make airing his addresses live mandatory? Or to make it illegal to oppose what he is saying in comments?

No, it’s not censorship. Donald Trump has ample opportunities to communicate his message. What he no longer has is his preferred communication method.

He is not entitled to use his preferred communication method because he’s abused it to to the degree that he’s created reputational risks for the platforms that carry it. That’s on him and his message.

I’m under no delusion that these platforms are acting nobly. I think they’re acting in shareholder’s interests by moving to mitigate a risk to themselves.

The fact of the matter is that Trump enjoyed tremendous leeway to violate the TOS of the platforms because of his position. Anyone else can and has been turfed out for much less than what he did.

> he’s abused it to to the degree

Nope. There's no such evidence.

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