US Politics

Good points - mind changed. Thank you.

Useful reminder of US first amendment rights

https://xkcd.com/1357/

Let's just flip this round for a second.

Imagine Twitter exists but it's owned by a right-leaning Jack Dorsey.

Towards the end of Bidens presidency, with six months to go, Twitter decides to have a cull of top Democrat accounts including the president. @POTUS still exists but is heavily censored. They give some bullshit cover reason which doesn't fly at all, but it doesn't matter.

Boden isn't silenced but this massively reduces the reach of his messages. He uses all other platforms but the election is swung towards the Republicans. Being that it seems US elections are pretty tight these days, it doesn't take much to change swing voters minds, and all they see if Republican messages.

Do we want that sort of power in the hands of a private company?

But does that mean that social media platforms have to be state-run?

Rupert Murdoch says "hi"

He has an entire apparatus to be able to communicate. TV stations, radio, newspapers. If he was so concerned about being unable to communicate perhaps he'd have stood in the WH press room over the last few days rather than hiding away.

Bang on. Twitter suits him perfectly because he's basically shitposter-in-chief and exceptionally lazy.

Fair fucking point.

You guys need to get out more.

oh, wait...

We know the newspapers influence is waning, so this is the same fight with different actors.

If Murdoch was 30 years younger he would be right in the middle of this.

Towards the end of Bidens presidency, with six months to go, Twitter decides to have a cull of top Democrat accounts including the president. @POTUS still exists but is heavily censored. They give some bullshit cover reason which doesn't fly at all, but it doesn't matter.

So do you think the reasons given by twitter etc. are bullshit, or are they simply banning a very high-profile person who has badly violated their terms of use?

I'm not commenting on the Trump situation at all, I'm highlighting the power that Twitter holds.

FWIW Trump has been spouting so much bullshit about stolen elections etc since November 6th and Twitter should have been censoring those tweets more strongly, and suspending him every single time he violated their TOS.

He is though, isn't he?

Raises eybrow

Tom Hanks double-take.

MySpace doesn't count

FWIW Trump has been spouting so much bullshit about stolen elections etc since November 6th

Longer than November 6th, look at page 1, post 1 in this thread!

suspending him every single time he violated their TOS.

Its a business... It sees his posts as access to subscribers. Remove him, lose subscribers.

We are a shallow society driven by greed.

Do we want that sort of power in the hands of a private company?

There are answers to this that don't require state ownership. Breaking up the big companies into smaller ones, forcing them to federalise their protocols so that people can communicate without being on the same platform etc. etc.

IMO, this is an area where the rule of law is good, the rule of government not so much.

Think about it. Making something state run puts it more closely under the control of the boogieman president you're talking about. Better regulation by law doesn't have the same effect. Witness the number of times Trump's ambitions have been thwarted in law courts.

Ah, ok. I don't think anyone's in doubt about the power held by social media and how inadequate and late their response has been. Don't really know what to do about it.

Good point here about the difference between law and government, missed that in my earlier post.

I think the power accrued by the social media companies has been under-estimated by many people, and they are suddenly seeing them flex their power.

It makes me laugh that the GOP had four years to try and do something but they are totally out of touch. It's very clear that the big tech companies are left leaning and it wouldn't go well for the Republicans in the long term, but they didn't seem to care.

Will be interesting to see how Biden approaches it all.

That was implicit in my post - state run social media is just horrible to think about. See China.

just heard trumps lawyer on the radio - sounds like his defence is gonna be that he started the insurrection by mistake...

We've all been there. Wake up on a Saturday, fully dressed with the lights on, banging headache, and the distinct feeling you tried to undermine democracy the night before.

Tbh that's not far from the truth

What - the - fuck.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/n7vqvq/manatee-with-trump-etched-into-back-sparks-federal-investigation