Isn’t it interesting that two of the giants of social media, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, have to police the Child in Chief in the Oval Office, because he can’t be trusted to police himself? And apparently neither can his aides. Washington Post:
Facebook on Wednesday said it removed President Trump’s post of a video clip from a Fox News interview in which he said that children are “almost immune” from covid-19, marking the company’s increasingly tough stance on political speech amid heightened pressure.
I guess it’s a good thing that there are some adults, somewhere, who are looking out for America’s interest during the pandemic, because it is certain that the sitting president* is not.
It will be interesting to see if Trump appeals the Twitter ban, or if he removes the offending tweet, which is hidden at this point. I am assuming that Trump will comply with Twitter’s ban, because that’s his drug of choice, the tweet box. I can’t see him giving it up that easily.
I’ll bet that there is wailing and gnashing of teeth at the White House right now. Who knows, maybe executive orders are being drafted.
I would laugh. But it’s not funny.
Folks who know me know the contempt I hold towards Twitter. That contempt long pre-dates Trump’s becoming a fixture on that platform. So I have a question: What exactly has Twitter done? Have they merely hidden the offending Tweet (after ignoring so many others that I’m told violated their site rules I might add) and blocked Trump from twittering until he removes it? If so it’s way too little. He’ll throw a tantrum, take it down and then go on merrily violating their user rules. Now, if Twitter makes his entire feed go dark, as in block ALL of his tweets over the past say four years and tell him they will do it again if he breaks the rules then I’ll believe Twitter is serious about reigning him in. Otherwise as far as I’m concerned it’s no better than FB – trying to skate and get some positive PR for “standing up to Trump” for holding him accountable for ONE violation. Basically I’m somewhat less than impressed.
Look at this from the perspective of glass half full. At least the social media giants are doing something. That’s better than what was happening before. And Trump has to cave, is the funny part. They’re holding all the cards and can ban him permanently.
Far as I can tell, both the tweet and FB post are gone, full stop. While I sympathize with your contempt–it’s only when Trump is losing that they do this–take it as a good sign nonetheless, Denis. When big companies make moves in a side’s favor like this, it means you’ve already won.
Won? I beg to differ. Going back to my jarhead days it would be the equivalent of having my squad in a defensive position against an enemy that outnumbered us five or more to one. Such an enemy will send out a “probe” at various points to size up the defenses. Easy enough to beat back, but hardly winning the battle yet to come – when the full force attacks. More to the current situation, FB in particular but Twitter too are I think doing what you suggest and taking a look at which way the wind is blowing. I wouldn’t take their “weathervane” behavior of the moment all that seriously. Even if the prevailing wind does change on a more or less permanent basis for the next few years what they want more than anything is to avoid regulation – which will happen if Democrats take control of government. It’s in their business interests for the GOP which views any government regulation of business as worse than murdering babies (well, white ones at least) so they’d rather see Democrats lose, or at least not win with a big enough margin to give cover to the “moderates” to pull their “bipartisanship” bullshit and give away the freaking store to the GOP. So in my view, today’s actions by FB and Twitter are the opening salvo, or “probe of the lines” to figure out the main attack – how to do just enough to claim they can be trusted to behave, to “self regulate” and avoid actual laws and regulations with teeth that force them to change.
Oh, STOP, Denis. If they thought for a second that Trump stood a chance, they’d have done a repeat of the weak sauce blocks previously shown. THAT was the probe. Escalation like this is them betting on him being gone in a few months and wanting non-Trumpies to stick around. Why risk Trump’s wrath otherwise?
I guess I didn’t do a good job making the point I want to make. You’re of course right about them believing it’s likely Trump will lose so taking this particular stand and pissing him off is a “risk” they are willing to take. However, given how often he’s violated site rules on both platforms the fact he hasn’t been permanently banned and his content removed by now tells me they are hedging their bets. There’s still the rest of the GOP out there after all and as I said today in a comment about Fox airing anti-Trump ads money is green and corporations this big don’t care where it comes from as long as they are getting their own big share of it. My main point however is that just has Trump has repeatedly violated site rules on these platforms in the past, he will do so again in the future and with regularity.
I still say that if as I suspect will happen taking down a post of his every now and then is nothing more than a cynical attempt to try and gaslight Congress persons next year when actual, serious legislation designed to impose tighter regulations gets into the pipeline. Dorsey and Zuckerberg will both point to this week and perhaps a few other examples in a “Why are you picking on us? We PROVED we can and do self-regulate! Honest? Why would you doubt us, and toss statistics at us like we only took down less than one in ten thousand (or whatever the actual number is) of his stuff that violated rules? PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!” I guaran-goddman-tee that’s the kind of bullshit they will try to sling next year, counting on Congress being filled with old farts who don’t know jack about social media and how algorithms analyzing content work. It’s worked well for them in the past, but in the House at least there’s now a younger and more media savvy set of folks and the recent go-round might have scared Dorsey and Zuckerberg a little. It’s my understanding the questions are getting a lot more “tight” and therefore uncomfortable for the tech giants. Now that I think about it that might be why they finally decided to weather a Trump tantrum this week.
But I still believe they will ignore for more between now and the election than they will take down – per their own fucking rules!
They violated terms of service, posting misinformation about the virus.
Denis, Could not possibly agree with you more. If Twitter ended his account altogether, which they should have done long ago, it would kill him. Pence would then have to pick a running mate, or R’s would have to have a brokered “virtual” convention. which would be interesting, don’t you think?? Dusty
Kinda like the German townsfolk outside the camps that pretended they had nothing to do with anything & were guilty of nothing.
Sums up conservatives pretty well. All the suffering and even death their policies (limiting and/or denying health care as a basic human right, their fight to de-regulate and have unsafe workplaces, to pollute including specific environmental racism – the list goes on) cause on a massive scale. Now, with the pandemic we are seeing what I believe is intentional genocide that’s been calculated to kill off or at least terrorize more of our people (into not voting) than their own. IOW we are seeing this attitude from this administration and all too many statehouses when it comes to the devastation and death taking place in this country due to the pandemic – pretending it isn’t happening or downplaying it as no big deal.
So the twat can’t tweet – best news of the month
Dear Lord, Ursula. you have written the piece of the century. Bless you for reporting it. And because you did, please stay safe and secure.
All I did was copy three paragraphs from the Washington Post. But I love it that Twitter has done this — and Facebook. Trump will go batshit, just wait.
What, he hasn’t already, Ursula?
They’re screaming about censorship, when it’s the TOS they agreed to.
To be fair, most people do not read any TOS, much less actively agree. Contracts are supposed to be mutually agreed upon, not take-it-or-leave-it propositions. It used to be you could alter a boilerplate contract with both parties initialing the modifications. Companies are loving online contracts because they are unalterable as well as heavily biased toward the company. And people “agree” to them because they feel they have no other choice. Going without is a viable option when it come to Twitter and Facebook and such like, but not practical when for example, you are in the doctor’s office.
They know which way the wind’s blowing…and it’s anywhere but Trump’s back. That’s why NOW and ONLY now they’re doing this. And BTW, did you happen to hear NY’S AG tell the press she’s got a national announcement tomorrow morning, right when we find out that grand jury has nearly ALL of Trump’s financial records courtesy of Deutsche Bank?
NYC certainly has those records. We don’t know about NYS. It’s quite probable that whatever Tish James is going to announce, it’s not about the Tr*mps. She’s got the NRA investigation, and maybe Kodak’s stock stuff last week.
Executive orders concerning Executive Time.
It is shameful that our duly elected, “representative” Congress cannot manage the Toddler In Chief, but a private company like Twitter can take him out behind the woodshed and whup his backside. ?
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