They really need to be explicit about why they did this. Twitter and Facebook have been right about banning DJT and the "Stop The Steal" conspiracists, but they've also spent social capital by doing it, and their reserves are very, very low.
(I think Ron Paul is a problematic character and not at all the idealist he's portrayed as by his fervid followers, but that doesn't matter here in the least).
>Twitter and Facebook have been right about banning DJT and the "Stop The Steal" conspiracists
How so? You call them conspiracists and they might very well be. In fact, let's say they are 100% conspiracists.
If "real conspiracists" are OK to be banned, how would you discern conspiracists from realists that tell it like it is?
Just because Twitter and Facebook says so?
There has been no shortage of actual stolen elections and/or election fraud worldwide (and one would presume, in the US historically).
Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country (where we can all agree that they might very well be stolen)?
> how would you discern conspiracists from realists that tell it like it is?
> Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country
This seems to suggest that because we can't always tell facts from lies, we must never act on information as being factual. That to me just seems wrong.
> Would Twitter by OK to ban people complaining about stolen elections in some Latin American country (where we can all agree that they might very well be stolen)?
They indeed were (e.g. Maduro in Venezuela is a recent one). I hope Twitter doesn't ignore such situations. There will always be a need for biased and subjective action.
> There has been no shortage of actual stolen elections and/or election fraud worldwide (and one would presume, in the US historically).
One should be really careful when talking about election fraud, to not confuse widespread systematic outcome-changing fraud (which is extremely rare) from instances of fraud (which is almost universal in any election but usually doesn't matter).
The recent presidential race was won by extremely narrow margins with a few cities (Atlanta, Philadelphia, Phoenix, etc) effectively determining the outcome.
Given that, why does the fraud have to be widespread and systematic in order to be valid? Also, why silence or dismiss even the smallest amount of fraud? It definitely matters regardless of which party/politician benefits.
The thousands of votes required would require more than isolated cases of individual voter fraud at least. I’d say several thousand in a single state is both widespread and symptomatic. And importanly there are no indications of that.
So, ignore evidence of fraud (including eyewitness testimony from dozens of witnesses sworn under oath) because you and others summarily deem it not widespread or systematic?
However, Congress spends years investigating sketchy, anonymous claims about Russian interference in 2016 elections?
> because you and others summarily deem it not widespread or systematic
"and others" includes every court presented with such evidence. As luck would have it, those weren't courts that could be said to be exactly "hostile" to the administration either. That would have been problematic.
I'm not trying to claim there is no substantial evidence of fraud. Anyone who has that evidence is free to present it in legal processes. If it has any merit, there could even be a case. There has been no such examples. That means either a) there was no significant fraud, b) there was fraud but it left no evidence, or c) there was both fraud and evidence but courts across the country rejected it because they are hostile to the administration. Which one do you suggest happened? Or put more clearly: what should happen before you believe a)?
Not one eye witness has been in, under oath, in front of a US Federal Judge and claimed they saw voter fraud. It has all been in hotel conference rooms. When the judge has asked for evidence they essentially get a shrug of the shoulders from Rudy G.
Actually, the margins weren't that small except for in Georgia and Nevada. And no, it wasn't down to those cities. Those cities voted about the same as they did in the last election. What changed was the white suburbs. They flipped just enough. Interestingly though, the white suburbs were not the target of accusation of cheating. I wonder why...
Anyone who's always willing to take the gun in hand or instigate others to do it before any evidence is presented either way is dangerous for society and for democracy. And by evidence I mean more than pizza-gate type allegations on FB or Twitter.
This being said just "not agreeing" with someone is not a reason for censorship.
>Anyone who's always willing to take the gun in hand or instigate others to do it before any evidence is presented either way is dangerous for society and for democracy.
Which is neither here, not there. Those banned weren't those that stomed the capitol.
It is the answer to your question* though, along with a practical example of what happens when instead of stopping obvious radicals and extremists you just ask "but how do we reaaally know?".
>> * how would you discern conspiracists from realists that tell it like it is?
If you are willing to take radical action with no evidence, or encourage others to do so you may be called a "conspiracist" and you are definitely a danger to society and democracy. DJT and "Stop The Steal" (whose ban you were objecting to) are today definitely way into the realm of "baseless accusations and incitement to radical actions". And it turns out reality unfolded exactly as predicted. So what was your objection to them being banned? That they were only "telling it like it is"? That it was FB and Twitter deciding? That it's just opinions and won't lead to anything more?
Your comment was in effect a mix of many mostly questions-related fallacies and vague implications but no direct, actual argument. That's no way to carry a useful, productive conversation.
But I will say it again, just not agreeing with someone is not a reason to ban them. Banning should be a protective measure when facing an imminent threat.
The facts are, the most recent US presidential election was not stolen, as confirmed by judges, experts, people in the administration, bipartisan states. It's ridiculous to claim that it was "stolen".
That has absolutely nothing to do with elections where there is actual doubt and irregularities, and where people can rightly say elections were "stolen" or influenced or cheated.
And you did nothing to address his point. Iirc, the judges and authorities and experts in Venezuela supported Maduro. Guaido nonetheless had a case and it would be wrong for a random tech company to decide if he should be deplatformed.
>actual doubt and irregularities
Again, who says what is ACTUAL doubt and irregularities? Cause I kind of don't want it to be the crowd or twitter/facebook.
> the judges and authorities and experts in Venezuela supported Maduro
If those were generally thought to be independent (as judged by other institutions e.g. internationally... there is no final arbiter here! It's turtles all the way down) then that would make a big difference. But they aren't.
This is a pretty easy thing to see subjectively. I think the mistake here is believing that
a) There could be a rigid objective framework for how this should work. A simple "manual" for how companies should act in these situations instead of having to rely on subjective or biased decisions.
or
b) In the absence of such a framework, companies must instead never take any action because it risks being arbitrary/subjective/...
That's clearly not going to happen. a) isn't possible yet b) is absolutely not desireable.
so you can see how people might disagree with you on whether someone is independent/reliable/etc.
>a) isn't possible.
Sure it is. "You deplatform someone after court order", or "you deplatform someone after measuring public opinion".These algorithms are just illustrative, before someone starts to point out why they're bad.
I just want objectivity and symmetry. Because I've seen far too many people do mental gymnastics and apply double standards when it comes to "our side" and "their side".
>b) is absolutely not desirable.
it is desirable for me. When it comes to politics, I'd prefer if everyone had a voice, even if you or I disagreed with them on a fundamental level.
Especially since the timing strongly suggest they are just changing whom they sycophant for, following the change of power, and we might very we'll be in a position of not liking whom goes to power next; assuming these company allegiance is to the just side and not to the side with power is quite naive and the questioning of their role in society legitimate.
At the same time, I wish people didn't jump to conclusions just yet. Yes, it could possibly be FB gone wild and starting weird blanket banning. It could be a mistake. It could be an organised group mass-reporting the account to make it banned and prove a point. (organised mass-reporting is relatively common) There's so many options.
I suspect and hope this will be reverted very quickly.
On Ron Paul? For some reason, I can't imagine any amount of mass reporting leading to the ban of other prominent politicians, even AOC would be banned ten times if special protections didn't exist
Pure speculation: To prove a point about incoming FB bans you don't have to concentrate on a single person. Get a large number of "not very active, but known and generally acceptable" people. Spam reports for any old posts that can be taken the wrong way. Wait for any success story. You're bound to find someone who isn't currently protected, or someone who will make a review mistake.
To be clear: I'm not saying this is what happened. Only that we know targeted mass-reporting to get people banned happens and is successful, so it's one of possibilities.
> and perhaps "testing the waters" to see how far they can take it atm.
This is precisely the jumping to conclusions. We don't know if it's related to the recent bans. FB was pretty open about the reasons for banning Trump and it got an announcement from Zuckerberg. There's lots of people banned every day for wrong reasons and lots not banned for wrong reasons. Of course they're all at the mercy of FB - that's not new.
We find ourselves in a science fiction US where we need to divine the opaque reasons of an all-powerful technological entity that can decide at whim who can or can't speak in this country.
And they do it while enjoying strong protections (Section 230) that most other private businesses don't receive - have this in mind when making the "private web property" argument.
Facebook really only wish they were in a position to be one of the most evil companies in the US, or world.
But they are nowhere close! The competition is just so very, very fierce. Koch industries. Cargill. Archer Daniels Midland. The unit of Bayer formerly called Dupont. The outfit once called Blackwater, Xe, now Academi. Halliburton. Alphabet. Microsoft, even still. Companies more evil even than them, that we don't even know the names of.
Probably only because you don't know much about them.
Alphabet by itself is far more evil than FB could ever hope for, and they have just started. Other companies directly cause cancer by the millions, or have single-handedly eliminated whole species.
When this thread first dropped, that's what I thought too. But here's a question. Ron Paul is one of the most well known libertarian and free-speech politicians. He is being limited during a free-speech controversy. If this is indeed "just a mistake", how long time is reasonable for Facebook to find and fix this?
If it takes more than 24h - and we are approaching that - but the US is sleeping so let's allow for that, their inaction starts to look malicious.
It's bizarre in that Ron Paul likely would advocate that it's FB's platform and private property and therefore has the right to censor and remove posts, even choosing who they do "business" with. Ron Paul would likely advocate for less government and against government regulation. I want to know and hear from Ron Paul on his take on his FB situation.
You're assuming government regulation is the only solution.
When Facebook or Comcast or Google start censoring opinions they don't like, I want to hear about it on other places like hackernews so that I and my friends can use them less.
In what way have they been right? What has he written that is against their policies, or against a sane policy? Like I legitimately want to hear, what adequate reasons to you think they had to ban him? I haven't been able to find any, at all.
Or is your definition of "right" just referring to the fact that it's their private platform and they can ban whoever they want based on their own political views?
Their statement is quite interesting - they go rather deep into explaining how they see the situation. But the disconnect between what Trump tweeted vs. what they see bodes poorly for Twitter.
Anyone who lives in a world where
The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!
can only be intended as a call to violence is not in a calm state of mind. I'm expecting this document is going to be cited a lot more by right-wing commentators than left-wing ones. It is just going to be too hard to sustain that interpretation in hindsight when everyone relaxes and it is obvious that the threat here is similar to all the other protests America has shrugged off in the last however many decades.
Even the heads of state for UK, Canada, and Germany have directly attributed blame to the Trump administration, which is diplomatically rare among allies.
That is likely realpolitik calculus - if they say nasty things about Trump they score points with the incoming Democrat administration, score points with the political insiders in Washington and the Republican establishment probably don't care - it being entirely possible that they don't actually like Trump (Republican establishment != right wing voters). It is a pretty safe thing to offer an opinion on from that perspective. They'll make no powerful enemies.
Trump is missing a shield here that most presidents enjoy. International leaders would still say polite things about Bush the Younger despite him doing objective global damage by leading the invasion of multiple countries. My read on why is because they see a risk that people committed to his policy legacy still hold power in the US government.
People meaning what they said is a really defensible position to argue. Trump is pretty proud of the people who vote for him.
Hypothetically speaking, the tension could die down over the next few weeks and the context could become a single violent protest against the background of BLM. The right wing are not known for competently organising sustained protests. There is a future here where unless something surprising happens Twitter gets a lot of egg on their face for, in a panic, ejecting a sitting president for things that are pretty banal when read literally.
Twitter accepting this risk is not something that bodes well for them.
The Wall Street Journal had an article [1] laying out how Trump and his allies have been setting the stage for what happened at the Capitol on the 6th.
So what did he say? Can you please produce a tweet where he incited violence? I only ask because no one including twitter seems to be able to do that? And I have looked... Maybe it's hard to do now that the account is banned... What is this "context" they speak of, where is the hate speech?
"Hey, I need my digital soldiers to show up on January 6".
"We fight like hell".
"And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore".
I also remember something along the lines of it's going to be wild on January 6.
Some of this was live, some on twitter.
The point is that the effect of what you say is what people hear, and these people obviously hear him (and other nationalist thought leaders) speak of a battle for the soul of the country (based on lies).
That is the natural effect of the kind of rhetoric he uses.
Did you somehow miss the May 30-31 attacks on the White House?
Quoting from the Secret Service press release:
"Some demonstrators repeatedly attempted to knock over security barriers, and vandalized six Secret Service vehicles. Between Friday night and Sunday morning, more than 60 Secret Service Uniformed Division Officers and Special Agents sustained multiple injuries from projectiles such as bricks, rocks, bottles, fireworks and other items. Secret Service personnel were also directly physically assaulted as they were kicked, punched, and exposed to bodily fluids. A total of 11 injured employees were transported to a local hospital and treated for non-life threatening injuries.”
And yet they managed to control the scene with no injuries to rioters and only one arrest.
I don't care about Target, they can deal with it. But it ruined lives, some of which were lost, of many normal day to day people that are just like you and me.
I find it suspicious that you're continually drawing parallels between BLM protests, which were largely peaceful, with an armed insurrection in an attempt to overthrow an election, so I don't think we're going to get any further with this discussion
I happen to be of controversial opinion that the lives of normal people are more important than those of lying politicians, who provoke the violence among the former for their own political gains and profit.
Everything he's tweeted since election day has been inciting violence. In fact since much earlier, since he was trying to delegitimise the election long before it happened. If a democratic election has genuinely been stolen then what other choice do the people have? Isn't that the whole point of the second amendment?
There was no hate speech and there were no calls for violence from Trump, quite the opposite. Twitter banned him because he might say something that might be interpreted as such, but of course they didn't care what the act of banning him itself might cause. Because that makes sense.
“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”
That's what he got banned for? I don't have all the details, but it sure looks similar to the autoritarian governments and police forces locking people up because "they know they meant it". There is no appeal to violence in that tweet. Just because some nutjob can interpret anything like an appeal, doesn't mean it's an appeal.
That was literally 1 of two tweets that god him banned, the first just describing a generic Trump tirade about his supporters. How can anyone honestly think this is democratic behavior to ban someone over two tweets that have no appeal to violence?
I don't care about pro-trump or anti-trump, but this is political censorship.
I read Twitter's whole article, and it seems to be exactly what GP thinks. The article is full of weasel words like "can be interpreted as" or "could be taken to mean". It does not point to any single actual example of inciting violence.
> That was literally 1 of two tweets that god him banned
> two tweets
A huge number of commenters here said the obvious "yes, quoting selected tweets was unfortunate when it was clearly not those particular tweets alone that was the cause".
That's still true. It was useless messaging. Ignore the quoted tweets and read the rest. Or read them as (poor) examples only.
There is zero way that the message from Twitter should be interpreted literally as "these two tweets only are what caused Trump to be banned". Anyone who thinks that obviously doesn't interpret their message in a charitable way.
I strongly believe the goal post of online censorship should be incitement of violence or obvious hatespeech. The rest will always be open to interpretation, that will depend on the biases of the censors. It seems to me this is the case here. There is nothing in his (other) tweets that incites violence.
Or can you show anything? Can they do it? After all the criticism they received, they still can't produce a IoV tweets as evidence? This does not look questionable to you?
A question I have is - why am I even asked to be reading twitter's thoughts about a matter, instead of actual tweets or things that the account wrote? Who is twitter? Why should I care about their opinion, who gave them right to affect opinion? Why are they supposed to have the moral authority to decipher complex situations for me and tell me how I should understand one message or another? Who elected them? What was the democratic process behind it?
It is these questions that make the situation real shady, not the two tweets.
Most jurisdictions have, for example, protections for renters. As in "the landlord cannot barge in at 2 a.m. and kick you out, even though the place is legally his/her".
This kind of legislation was motivated by an effort to protect weaker parties against capriciousness of stronger parties, even though the housing market is nowhere near to an oligopoly.
Now, a Star Chamber of Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Visa banning, e.g. a small business owner overnight will destroy his/her business without recourse and prevent it from getting on their feet again. In my opinion, this is even graver problem than a landlord kicking someone out at will.
You could make a decent argument that twitter and the other social giants have more real power than most countries' governments on this planet. The whole reason we think governments shouldn't censer speech is specifically because they are so powerful, and while you may like who's in power today, good luck trying to keep it that way.
Which is exactly the reason why Twitter should be allowed to set it's own moderation rules. Who else is going to tell Twitter what they can and cannot moderate? The only other people who can is the government and then you have a situation where the government is now controlling speech.
The ironic thing about this situation is that Twitter exercising their own judgement on what can and cannot be hosted on their platform is actually a good thing for the demonstration of independence of social platforms from government control.
True. And if you remember all those hearings where they pretty much forced those Twitter/FB/Amazon/Google CEOs where they berated them like little kids. Those CEOs didn't really object much and knew they could get in a lot of trouble if they did so. Unfortunately, Trump could hurt those companies if he wanted I'm sure. Just look at what happened to Huawei, now the writing is on the wall for DJI and some others. I'm sure those CEOs were just biding their time waiting for Trump to go (and now they decided to act where it is obvious that he's done).
My interpretation is that isn't that they were fearful of government control but rather welcomed the controversy to their platform as it resulted in more eyeballs on their inlined advertisements.
Trump's departure from office plus the riot was where the balance was tipped (ie Twitter's potential future income from Trump's controversies was no longer greater than the reputational cost in keeping him on the platform).
The argument boils down to: if freedom of speech is the freedom to speak in the town square, could we ever have a situation where social media is the Town Squre of today?
I think not. I just don't think we'll ever have functioning legal frameworks for that.
Basically: freedom of speech and expression will only apply to what you do with your mouth, in the street. "Speech at scale", such as social media, will simply not be able to be included in it.
That might seem like a pessimistic take, but I don't think it is. The alternative is democratically elected governments taking a greater role in social media, effectively claiming services to be part of the substrate of society (Twitter, Streets...). I don't like that idea either. The lesser evil seems like the first scenario: freedom of speech not including at scale.
The millions of people reading the accusations in the newspapers can not easily check the accusations. That is the issue.
Yes, copies of his tweets exist, although I am also not sure if they are legal. Iirc Twitter demands that downloaded Tweets are being deleted when they are being deleted on Twitter. Trump himself may have the rights to publish them, though.
But the one tweet is not the issue, they say. It is the one tweet in the context of all his tweets. I mean the one tweet only said "I won't attend the inauguration".
They don't explicitly say what tweets are the actual reason for his termination.
I found an archive of Trump tweets. It consists of 50000 tweets. Finding tweets in there that somehow confirm the claims that he was calling for violence is more work than just a couple of minutes.
> But the one tweet is not the issue, they say. It is the one tweet in the context of all his tweets.
And getting all of them is as easy as getting a speech recording, if not easier.
> I found an archive of Trump tweets. It consists of 50000 tweets. Finding tweets in there that somehow confirm the claims that he was calling for violence is more work than just a couple of minutes.
The exact same thing happens if his twitter is unbanned and you go there for context. I'm not seeing the issue.
There's good censorship and bad censorship: eg not having inappropriate content broadcast on shows kids are likely to watch (good censorship) vs the government dictating how current affairs are reported in the news (bad censorship).
Ironically Twitter moderating their own platform is good censorship because it means they're able to operate independently from the government. The alternative is the government intervening and dictating what social platforms can and cannot publish...and that sounds a whole lot more shady than the complaint you're making.
Without wanting to get dragged into a parenting debate (those seldom go well on HN)...the problem we face is that adults should have the maturity to chose which content they consume where as children do need some degree of protection from some content. People will obviously disagree on exactly where that line should be drawn, which is fine, but few would argue that there shouldn't be a line in the first place.
The real crux of the distinction is that obscenity laws are about censoring artistic flourishes (nudity, graphic violence, bad language, etc) that many feel is unsuitable for children, rather than filtering news content that is subjectively deemed as "wrong" due to a political bias. If the US (or any other government for that matter) abused obscenity laws to filter content aimed at children to an extent that then pushes a political bias (for example) then such a censorship would shift from a "good thing" to a "bad thing".
> I strongly believe the goal post of online censorship should be incitement of violence or obvious hatespeech.
I want to add I also strongly believe this. But I also strongly believe that this situation isn't using (and shouldn't be using) the standards applied to an individual.
A US president with millions of followers, and a 14 day timeframe to the event, I think makes for an extraordinary situation that could require extraordinary action.
So to be clear: I think the bar here is, and should be, lower.
> The rest will always be open to interpretation, that will depend on the biases of the censors.
Agree. We can't have censorship (or moderation) without bias and intepretation. The question is then whether
we want biased moderation or no moderation.
> This does not look questionable to you
Not at all. I completely support Twitter's right (and decision) to make a subjective call. It's not an easy one, but given the circumstances I consider it correct.
> There is nothing in his (other) tweets that incites violence.
A public official falsely claiming (for example) that Trump "won the elction in a landslide" is now clear incitement of violence.
It's knowledge we have after the fact. The violence already happened.
The reason Trump wasn't banned for those same tweets earlier? Because those same messages could charitably be interpretated as hot air. And Twitter did use that interpretation. They are only seen as inciting violence after the violence.
One could argue that waiting with banning people for inciting violence until after the violence occurs is a ridiculously high bar!
> is now clear incitement of violence. It's knowledge we have after the fact.
Ehm, what is your logic behind that? That one event has happened before the other one? Since when is that enough of a "clear" statement? How do you go from that one correlation that you picked to somehow being sure of the causal (not only that, primary causal) connection between the two? Also how did you assign responsibility? Should marilyn manson's music be banned because a columbine shooter has listened to his music days before shooting up a school?
> That one event has happened before the other one?
That one event happened due to the other one.
> Since when is that enough of a "clear" statement?
I think it's clear enough for these platforms to take action.
> Also how did you assign responsibility?
I think a large part of the responsibility lies with president, because of the power of the office.
> Should marilyn manson's music be banned because a columbine shooter has listened to his music days before shooting up a school?
No?
As I said elsewhere, I think the mistake in reasoning when objecting here is that people seem to think
a) There could be a rigid objective framework for how this should work. A simple "manual" for how companies should act in these situations instead of having to rely on subjective or biased decisions.
or
b) In the absence of such a framework, companies must instead never take any action because it risks being arbitrary/subjective/...
I think a) is impossible and b) is less desireable than arbitrary/subjective actions like these. That's all.
Empathizing with someone and addressing their concerns is a textbook opener. It is not the same as condoning their choice of actions. "Please go home now" seems like a very explicit call to action.
That aside, a post-hoc statement can't be construed as a precipitory.
Sure, like he called BLM protestors "thugs" and the movement a terrorist organization to calm things down.
He's not being diplomatic, that's not a thing he does. He likes things that benefits him, and condemns all things that don't. It's amazing that people can still with a straight face make these kinds of excuses for him.
"I know your pain, I know your hurt"
"great patriots who have been badly & unfairly treated for so long."
"These Anarchists, not protesters"
"Disgraceful. Never seen anything like it. Thugs."
"when the looting starts, the shooting starts"
"domestic acts of terror."
I'll leave it up to you to guess whom he's addressing in each quote.
Try to stick to one topic at a time. We are attempting to discuss a very narrow claim about incitement of the Capitol Building riot.
I'm having difficulty understanding how your comment relates to mine. If you would like to debate the merits of Trump's persona, you'll have to find someone else. I'm absolutely not claiming that he is above criticism. However, that doesn't relate at all to the specifics of what I've said here.
RE: your edits
Yes, he also condemned the injustice surrounding police abuse. You are cherry picking, or perhaps viewing things through the lens of a partisan media.
Sorry, I don't see how anything you've said 'proves' that Trump's post-hoc statement condoned, much less incited the actions of the violent minority within the protest.
In regards to the separate topic of the BLM protests, you could've presented quotes such as this:
"All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd. My administration is fully committed that for George and his family, justice will be served. He will not have died in vain. But we cannot allow the righteous cries and peaceful protesters to be drowned out by an angry mob. The biggest victims of the rioting are peace-loving citizens in our poorest communities. And as their president, I will fight to keep them safe. I will fight to protect you. I am your president of law and order, and an ally of all peaceful protesters."
I'm not surprised that he's read a prepared measured speech.
What I haven't seen, and I would love to see "cherry picked" is the rhetoric I posted but reversed between the two groups. I'll make a bet and say that that's never happened.
Which brings us back around to; he's condoning the specific group storming the capitol, while fast and loose condemning every unruly edge case of the BLM movement.
"...you have to go home now. We have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our great people in law and order. We don't want anybody hurt."
Sounds consistent. Peaceful protest, yes. Violence, destruction of property, no.
And now you want to turn the topic onto Charlottesville, where he explicitly condemned the violence and extremists.
"To anyone who acted criminally in this weekend’s racist violence, you will be held fully accountable. Justice will be delivered. As I said on Saturday, we condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence. It has no place in America."
"Those who spread violence in the name of bigotry strike at the very core of America."
"I would like to begin by addressing the heinous attack on the United States Capitol. Like all Americans, I am outraged by the violence, lawlessness and mayhem."
"The demonstrators who infiltrated the Capitol have defiled the seat of American democracy. To those who engaged in the acts of violence and destruction, you do not represent our country. And to those who broke the law, you will pay."
You've no issue quoting the prepared statement asking Capitol Building protesters to go home. Yet you take issue with a prepared statement about George Floyd. I'll agree that consistency is important here.
This flavor of hyperpartisanship is part of the problem. There's very little you can change about Trump's supporters. Even less if you take an extreme partisan approach. This only contributes to the toxicity.
> You've no issue quoting the prepared statement asking Capitol Building protesters to go home
What I quoted wasn't the prepared statements. The prepared statements you quoted was long after he got massive pushback and moves to impeach him (again). Exactly his modus operandi.
> And now you want to turn the topic onto Charlottesville
I am establishing a pattern, yes.
> where he explicitly condemned the violence and extremists.
After multiple days and massive flack from all sides of the aisle.
> This flavor of hyperpartisanship is part of the problem. [...] Even less if you take an extreme partisan approach. This only contributes to the toxicity.
I agree, which is exactly why I've been writing these posts.
> There's very little you can change about Trump's supporters.
You could start by not choosing rhetoric based on politics, which is exactly what he's been doing for 4 (+) years. Ducks are ducks regardless of politics, but he treats them very differently.
>If you say "We love you, you're special" to violent insurrectionists
>What I quoted wasn't the prepared statements.
Are you now cherry picking which statements are prepared and which aren't? Amazing. Choose your own meaning to extrapolate _and_ choose which statements are valid.
Which statements contradict each other? I'm not seeing it.
What I do see is mass hysteria surrounding his statements.
"I condemn in the strongest possible terms..."
But he didn't call them terrorists (in a quote I could find) in an off the cuff statement, so you're entitled to telepathically divine another meaning from the statement?
Take another angle. When Trump said, "There will be a peaceful transition to a new administration", some of his supporters imagined this meant he isn't leaving the Whitehouse.
For myself, I have no telepathic abilities. Nor do I believe that those who are passionate about their love or hate for the man have telepathic abilities.
What I observe is mass hysteria. From the left, this is buoyed by media spin. On the right, you have the Q types. Again this is buoyed by media dishonesty. If media institutions were less misleading, perhaps there would be more trust in establishment sources. Instead there is a vacuum where deranged conspiracies can mix in among perspectives the media would rather not cover.
> But he didn't call them terrorists (in a quote I could find) in an off the cuff statement, so you're entitled to telepathically divine another meaning from the statement?
Honestly, yes? He's never stopped himself from using the term earlier. So why isn't he now (or actually any time it's an extreme right/white nationalist terrorist)? This was clearly terrorism.
> Take another angle. When Trump said, "There will be a peaceful transition to a new administration", some of his supporters imagined that this meant that he isn't leaving the Whitehouse.
Funny example, seeing as that came after the capitol riots, and not say... when he lost the election. Which entirely proves my point.
Which seems in this context just like a card blanche to blame anything whatsoever on Trump. As long as he didn't explicitly called for violence, I don't see how he "incited" anything.
By that logic you could never criticize anything, because it could make people angry and they could do bad things in return. And of course that is what many people want, to rule and be completely shielded from criticism.
Not a fan of Ron Paul but this doesn't sit right. It doesn't appear that he has advocated violence or insurgency.
I wouldn't have a problem with legislation requiring disclosure of specific reasons for locking users out of their accounts, once a social media company, payment provider, or other online service provider reaches a certain size. Of course, under libertarian principles, Ron Paul would object to such a law, but that's where we are nowadays. Lots of ideological chickens coming home to roost.
I don't see it either. I also don't see how there's an ideological conflict. Ron Paul's site has been ambivalent-to-favorable about the attempt to overturn the election, and maybe that's the new issue Facebook has. Whatever it is, they should disclose it, or just walk the ban back --- people get randomly banned, temporarily, from Facebook all the time.
Should everybody who believed in the Russian Hacker narrative be deleted from Facebook and Twitter? I know it seems like an eternity ago, but we've seen relentless campaigning against Trump on the basis of the Russian Hackers allegations, claiming his election was invalid.
Shouldn't it be a hallmark of free societies that election results can be discussed and questioned?
Not sure why this is greyed out because it's a fair question. I think the difference is that this recent set of actions (ignoring Ron Paul at the moment because we don't know what has actually happened here yet) has only come after the 'steal' narrative has led to violence, but it does seem partisan to not even countenance people comparing the general conspiracy to the one surrounding 2016.
"She told party donors that President Putin had a "personal beef" against her for describing Russia's parliamentary elections five years ago as rigged."
While none of the heads of the party went so far as to say it should be overturned, we did go through many years of activists saying it should be.
I'm not here to say "CLINTON IS AS BAD AS TRUMP" "THE EMAILS" or whatever. I'm just pointing out that, to someone outside of the US, it's pretty obvious this is the second election in a row that has been declared rigged and needing to be challenged by a large number of the losing side.
Edit: Just to clarify, as this is a sensitive topic. Neither claim has merit. Trump won 2016 and there's no evidence Russia swung it for him. Biden won definitively in 2020 and, whatever Trump activists are saying, the president of the US should not be pushing this narrative. Anyone going beyond conspiracy/sore loser level "election was rigged" talk in to "we should overthrow the government/hang politicians" should definitely be removed from social media – and it's a failure of social media that they have seemingly turned a blind eye to this subject for years now.
Sorry, didn't check my replies. I'm also outside of the US and honestly find your reply quite baffling. That quote about Clinton is not in any way "saying the election was rigged and that the result must be fought and overturned".
I'm sure some individual activists may have, but I certainly didn't see a large number on the losing side in 2016 saying the result should be overturned. Even if they were, they certainly weren't wound up enough to do so by violent means. Comparing the two situations is absurd.
Really? I was under the impression that they tried to take Trump down under the assumption that he won the presidency by illegal means. Seems the same kind of thing to me. Even now they still try to impeach him.
I listen to Ron Paul all the time, not even once i have listened him to be racist or hateful to anyone, or advocate for violence. Actually this is what i dislike him the most, that he is too peaceful, almost against all wars. Other subjects he comments usually, is the climate change that it may be true, but most probably not man-made, he is not favor at all the compulsory vaccination because it is totally unscientific, and that most of the covid measures are totally authoritarian.
However silencing the political opposition is always a necessary step we have to make, so as to have a good functional democracy.
I think 'cherrypicked out of your search' is more accurate. For instance, here's the first author you selected "Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review [...]"
Wikipedia is maybe a more reasonable averaging of all sources. And it's mostly a long history of bigoted stuff that Ron Paul was not responsible for but somehow kept showing up in a newsletter with his name on it:
Actually in the 1978 that published some controversial publications i was not even born yet. However Ron is saying that they were taken out of context. Authoritative news usually do that, that's why 90% of the time they spread fake news. Some people may argue that authoritative news spread fake news 99% of the time, but i find that a hyperbole and i stick to the 90%. Point me if you so desire to the exact publication with the context around it. One or two pages would be fine. Thanks.
Ron Paul's newsletter didn't contain bigoted content because 90% of mainstream news is fake news doesn't sound empirically plausible to me. What are the 9 fake stories of the 10 top stories reported in mainstream media yesterday? Or really any 9 fake stories, out of the thousands.
Well that 99% percent statement was not meant to be read absolutely seriously, but many news outlets take out of context, sentences of the political opposition all the time. I am sorry, but half the truth, is half the lie and not half the truth. You still didn't point out a good example of a racist statement from Paul. With the full context around it. And if you can, limit the statement's time horizon on last one or two decades.
A good politician is never blatantly racist, that's political suicide.
Anyway, it's not enough to "not be racist", that's like the default, like "being nice to others" is. What are you when you're not nice? Just "there"? No, you're a prick.
When it comes to racism, if you're not openly against it, you condone it, and you're part of the problem.
Take Trump; in his position, he can take down the extreme right paramilitary organizations, the Proud Boys, the KKK, the conservative churches, etc. But he chooses not to, instead dogwhilstling his approval and support; statements like "stand back and stand by", encouraging the crowds to storm the Capitol, etc etc etc. He knows he'd be booted out hard if he starts to hard-R his way through speeches, but dogwhistles have no consequences, and inaction has no direct consequences.
You are right on all your words except that one part. Of course politicians know how string together two sentences with nice sounding words to convey any meaning they want. But Ron never said a homeless of one colour is more homeless than any other colour. A hungry of one colour more hungry of any other colour. But if you want to put your words into any other person, that's the start of a theocracy.
Many stuff about the climate change, are almost any other religion. And of covid too. Ron says many times hair raising stuff for the newly minted religion of the atheist left.
P.S. i personally eat the bark of the pine tree every day almost all day, specifically for climate change. If we make it economically viable to plant big trees in cities, because people will be benefiting from them as a food source, then climate may reverse in no time. But it may not be man made. And meat production is the worst for the climate, i am a vegan for years.
Minimum wage laws when instituted were racist. To this day it still detrimentally affects individuals trying to enter a work force by creating an artificial barrier.
Currently, there is a push to increase the minimum wage to $15. If I oppose this on my concept of what it is, a vestige of systematic racism that contributes further to that system, then what do I make of proponents of the increase who argue that voting against it is racist.
The entire endeavor is a waste of time, the politicos will do what they want and then tell you why we should hate Eurasia.
Facebook and newspapers are both private companies and are subject to the same law. They can't do whatever the hell they want. They can't publish slander, for example.
However it seems that limits to free speech are expressed differently for newspapers and Facebook.
I am still thinking about this.
Newspapers always have selected expressions. This is just because it is unfeasible to let everybody express themselves in a newspaper. It is a lot of work to print someone's free speech, so the newspaper has to select. This is not limiting someone's free speech.
And for social media companies the barrier to let someone express themselves is a lot lower. As a society we are still figuring out what this means for free speech.
Five hundred years ago with the print press the balance shifted, too. Monarchs in Germany were ousted. Society learnt to appreciate the freedom of the print press and to draw lines in the sand with slander and libel. We need to find out the rights, obligations and prohibitions concerning social media.
It's a process. It needs time.
I think, a novel concept will be that society's trust in information is a worth needing protection. It's similar to the concept that public health is also something that needs protection. This means: five hundred years ago with printing presses people learnt to extend protection from insults to newspapers. A few hundred years later protection of personal integrity from slander is part of Human Rights.
And now this seems to be repeating with society's trust in information.
The problem with that, as always, and one of the main reasons why there are rarely details about bans like these, is fake/illicit/malicious accounts. If someone with a Facebook bot farm gets detailed reasons for the ban of his bots, he can improve them next time around based on the newly gathered information about banning and rules.
Because if they don't, they will rack up really bad reputation for crushing people wantonly and acting as judge, jury and executioner over their livelihoods, without even giving a clear idea what constitutes a fatal offence.
There are already antitrust proceedings running, they generally take years from start to finish (the old antitrust Microsoft case took 8 years IIRC), a lot can happen in the meantime.
If they don't it'll just add to the duopoly break up argument.
It's also easy to be be complacent when it's not our views under attack, but all you need is the thought exercise of how this will be abused when the other side takes power.
I look forward to the EFF and the ACLU getting their pages shut down then. Even they've come out and stated that we should be chilled with Parler's shutout.
>Yes, this is partly an attempt to erase the Trump movement from the pages of history, but it is also an attempt to silence any criticism of the emerging political consensus in the coming Biden era that may come from progressive or antiwar circles.
Getting banned right after saying this just shows that he's right. Combined with how DNC blocked Sanders and Gabbard, the next four years is going to be very bad for the rest of the world.
Exactly. As someone from Europe I shiver at the thought of trump leaving the presidency. Biden will restart the wars and flood Europe with economic migra... I mean refugees once again.
> the next four years is going to be very bad for the rest of the world
As someone from the ROTW I can tell you we're thrilled that Trump is leaving. It's been 4 years of uncertainty, foul rhetoric, blatant lying and cronyism. Trump sought the line and the line was drawn. Would it be better if it hadn't come to it? Yeah I think so. But we're waaaaay past that.
> Because no army – not even Big Tech partnered with Big Government - can stop an idea
This is more hopeful than conclusively factual. It seems pretty clear that platform owners believe very strongly that they can and should or must. It’s the must part that concerns me. Jack’s free-speaking interviews don’t imply any personal desire for censorship. He’s even spoken to the need for a decentralized Twitter.
Maybe the most important part of this quote is that Ron Paul explicitly implies a partnership where none so far is understood, and at this point such an implication is certainly on the fringe of conspiracy theories. And if you think about all of the POTUS death threats that have built massive audiences on the platform, it’s an extremely confusing and/or deeply troubling accusation. Who is this ‘Big Government’, and why would they seem to hate the one person that most Americans most closely associate with that term?
I guess the big question is whether censorship exists to protect powerless people from lies, or powerful people from the truth.
> President Trump’s permanent ban from Twitter and other outlets – was shocking and chilling, particularly to those of us who value free expression and the free exchange of ideas. The justifications given for the silencing of wide swaths of public opinion made no sense
That's all I need to read in order to dismiss anything further that he says.
A cynic would say that tech companies are ingratiating themselves with the new power, the Democrats, in order to get clemency on the anti-trust probes everyone was expecting for 2021.
Oh yeah, but when the pendulum swings the other way in a couple of years (and it will) they will be screwed. For Republicans, corps have clear that they have a side and its against Republicans.
It's the disadvantage of corporations getting into politics.
What prevents Big Tech from occupying the Chinese market is the fact that the Chinese leadership does not trust them to toe the line perfectly. That won't change with a change in the White House.
Reinstating net neutrality will be a good thing. Shelving that mostly helped ISPs, who've now expanded their anti-competitive zero-rating practices to broadband.
You said “this kind of censorship”, but in the context of this topic, it’s not ISPs doing this censoring. I don’t think NN would have done anything to address the coordinated deplatforming of a Twitter competitor, right?
> I don’t think NN would have done anything to address the coordinated deplatforming of a Twitter competitor, right?
It would have encouraged a new Twitter to rise earlier than now. So yes it has an impact on the current deplatforming. The solution to private companies deplatforming is competition, at whatever level it takes. Without NN protections in place it is much harder to build out that competition at any level.
Let's rephrase it then. The topic of zero rating is a studied one where people have found advantages and disadvantages, which is why carve-outs were made for it in the first place.
> has anti-China policies, which reduces Big Tech's customer base.
Biden has already said he will not reverse the China policy - quite the contrary, unlike Trump who only resorted to bullying tactics (aka trade/tariff war), Biden intends to work out a China policy with allied countries (i.e. NATO / European Union) that will aim at changing the abusive practices China is doing, per https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/opinion/biden-interview-m... .
These kinds of actions only fan the big tech conspiracy flames, but surely if it's true that he never actually received a violation, then his account got 1000s of reports and was auto-locked.
I listen to him occasionally. He is a natural contrarian and has said things at various time that would likely be against social media policies. For example he had segments on his “Liberty Report” that encouraged mask skepticism and other such misguided things about dealing with Covid that he should know better about, being a former medical doctor.
I very much doubt he’s said anything in support of the recent insurrections though, he’s incredibly anti-war and generally promoting peace. IMO he has deteriorated mentally in recent years and has become significantly more kooky, which is a shame because IMO there are some things he’s been very right about and he’s almost the only one advocating for certain things.
Many Americans viewed this assault on social media accounts as a liberal or Democrat attack on conservatives and Republicans, but they are missing the point. The narrowing of allowable opinion in the virtual public square is no conspiracy against conservatives. As progressives like Glenn Greenwald have pointed out, this is a wider assault on any opinion that veers from the acceptable parameters of the mainstream elite, which is made up of both Democrats and Republicans.
This is what Americans need to understand. Democrat vs. Republican, right vs. left are smokescreens designed to distract you from actual issues. The real divide is more like legacy institutional technocracy vs. local-focused democracy.
In real terms: Trump and Sanders are mirror images of each other, not opposites. Both basically have/had the same populist platform with different implementations.
I think if you look at pre-2016 Trump and Sanders, before both got eaten up by their respective political machines, their larger platforms are actually quite similar.
Fb, Amazon, Apple and Google ought to keep in mind that the Dems won’t be in control forever. Past history shows that one party controls the presidency for only 1 or 2 terms, the it flips. When the Republicans are back in control, I doubt they will have forgotten the attempted suppression by these tech companies and will be looking for some payback.
I am just watching this unfold from a few thousand miles away, but if you ask me, big tech is helping the democrats block all opposition.
Even before Trump was blocked, what I found really scary was blocking Unity 2020 (https://articlesofunity.org/). That movement was as far away from radicalism as any movement can be. Yet they got blocked because it could have hurt the Democrat victory. Now, by blocking Trump and other republicans, they are just sealing the deal and make clear that nothing goes without big tech approval.
Unity 2020 was blocked for creating a follow & retweet ring as per a /r/unity2020 post's instructions. Then they tried to act like social media was silencing them, which I really didn't like and will remember if these people start a similar project in 2024.
I found a post that's still up with similar instructions[0]. "Follow everyone @Tweet4Unity follows" is not allowed and as someone who worked on Twitter disinformation analysis, I can say would immediately show up as a botnet.
Lack of clarity on these actions doesn't do anyone any good. On issues of moderation judgment calls are almost always necessary, but in return they should be coupled with some transparency and clear rationale, else it looks arbitrary or even retributive.
Whether or not people agree with the decision, we know exactly why Trump and several others got blocked this past week. This on the other hand is a case where rationale is currently unclear, and in that information vacuum people will fill in the gaps with their own ideas which are almost always going to cause them to trust the brand less.
Random anecdote: A libertarian friend got his facebook page banned because they wrote a book about covid (which criticised governments handling of the situation in their country).
They banned Ron Paul? This is getting insane. He is so far outside the Trump camp. He was the only person to vote against the Iraq war. His voice is a voice of peace and classical liberal values. You might disagree with him, but to ban him is just insane.
Not nearly as much as Fox and OAN are extensions of the Republican party. These platforms have allowed Trump and QAnon etc. go on for years and when they finally put their foot down they are unreasonable? It's Fox's corporate policy to be an extension of the GOP.
A TV channel is not the same as a social network. One broadcasts their ideology, the other is a platform for discussion. Like it or not social networks are the modern day way of people to assemble.
They are flirting with some very real consequences down the line. Maybe they are bold due to democrats winning both houses and presidency. But that will not last forever. The CEOs of these companies are not stupid, so my theory is they are being strong armed. Either by their employees or directly by the democratic party.
This isn't a debate of ideas or words anymore. One side went full kinetic against the government, with the intention of preventing the democratic transition of power to the Biden administration.
Enabling sedition has real consequences now, and it is in the best interest of the shareholders of any corporation to defend the government which provides legal and institutional legitimacy to your enterprise. That's why CEOs are making this calculation, not because they are being influenced by liberal employees. There is zero guarantee that the "MAGA Republic" would continue to let Facebook or Twitter continue to operate.
In 2017 a leftist gunman (2016 presidential campaign volunteer) shot up a group of federal Republican legislators, hitting one in a ten minute gun battle with Capitol police. Hitting only one wasn’t a failure of intent but of the gunman’s skills.
I’m not linking the events, but considering that a literal (not hyperbolic) deliberate mass assassination attempt was carried out on Republican congressional leaders in 2017, isn’t it a bit disingenuous to say that “one side went full kinetic”.
The difference is in the reaction. Bernie Sanders and other members of the progressive caucus immediately condemned the lone wolf attack in very clear terms. The reaction of the president to the Wednesday attack was far different and will likely encourage future acts of violence.
Twitter didn't ban Bernie Sanders because he 1) never encouraged the attack and 2) responded appropriately. Twitter banned Trump because he played a part in encouraging the attack and then didn't genuinely condemn the attacks. That's why these two scenarios are very different.
There are many reasons the scenarios are different. I’m calling out the fallacy in saying “one side went full kinetic”. This point has nothing to do with Twitter. This is about violent rhetoric leading to violent action, and a false supposition that “one side” in this has no history of violent political action (e.g. clean hands) in comparison to the other.
> One side went full kinetic against the government, with the intention of preventing the democratic transition of power to the Biden administration.
Please. They were a bunch of bafoons who got too far because the law enforcement was not staffed enough at the area.
All I'm seeing is a bunch of private companies doing a job that should be up to law enforcement. The idiots successfully turned around a widespread condemnation and political suicide of Trump into a debate on their power.
Nah, Bernie after each election seems to crawl right back to the DNC establishment even while they spank him. I wished both times that he stood up to the DNC more if only for the DNC’s own health. I clearly don’t understand his thinking about this.
First of all we don't know the details here: quite possibly this could be one of the following (non-exhaustive): either a overzealous and politically motivated MAGA moderator who thought that barring Ron Paul could be a great way to make a point and cause a backlash that swings the pendulum back to giving conspiracy nuts a free rein again. Or, a politically ignorant moderator that wanted to score some points for achieving a perceived but misunderstood, objective. Or, an automated response to a coordinated flood of reports by an anti-libertarian brigade. Or, an automated response to a flood of comments calling for the execution of the VP, a flood of pornographic pictures by a community brigade or the like. Or, it could be a conscious effort by top brass on FB to punish Ron Paul on their platform for criticizing tech censorship. Out of which the last one seems the least probable, but in lieu of an official and forthright response from FB everyone is free to speculate wildly.
But agree, it is ironic that Ron Paul complains about it. It is almost as if he really wants FB to behave like a public utility type service. Maybe it's time they did.
I think the hardcore libertarian is complaining that oligopolies embedded with the inbound political administration are collaborating to shut out oppositional voices. Not seeing any contradiction with first principles of free markets and liberty there.
IMO that's a bit of a stretch. "Oligopolies embedded with the inbound political administration are collaborating to shut out oppositional voice" seems to be a hallmark of modern American politics, on both sides.
Easy enough for the free market to fix, right? There needs to be a way to set up a free-speech/right-wing-friendly social media company that also manages not to automatically become a hotbed of conspiracy nuts and antisemites. Weirdly that seems quite difficult to do. /s
Insofar as the free market is concerned, yeah, I think the criticism would be that lower barriers to entry and a restriction on anti-competitive practices would be a positive thing (whether via their M&A moves or overwhelming market ownership). Pointing to righteousness and virtue to shutdown Parler may help some of the faithful sleep better at night, but when simply looked at as a conveniently anti-competitive move for both commercial and political ends it’s quite a bit more banal.
> Those who continue to argue that the social media companies are purely private ventures acting independent of US government interests are ignoring reality. The corporatist merger of “private” US social media companies with US government foreign policy goals has a long history
Says Facebook is an arm of the government advancing shady goals and murderous drone attacks then wonders why he got blocked
You are kind of proving his point: you are narrowing the window of acceptable opinion not to merely exclude "kill all X" but to also forbid stances like "Big Tech helps advance US gov interests overseas“.
How can one not see the Orweillian direction this all seems to be taking?
"big tech helps advance us gov interests overseas"
Is that supposed to be controversial? During the Arab Spring, everyone constantly talked about how big tech was helping people fight their dictators so those countries could become liberal democracy us allies
The Supreme Court ruled corporations are people. Do you let people say whatever they want about you in your blog (let's suppose you have one) So if somebody comes on my Facebook and writes that I'm a rapist and a murderer (falsely, for sure) I'm not supposed to block them?
Ah yes, the classic Orwell quote: “if you want a picture of the future, imagine a foot stamping on a human face that could voluntarily go somewhere else to post their nonsense without consequence—forever.”
Except it's been made quite clear now that no other alternatives will be accepted; even the slightest misstep or lack of proper curation and/or censorship of content, and you will be stripped of your ability to run your site.
(I think Ron Paul is a problematic character and not at all the idealist he's portrayed as by his fervid followers, but that doesn't matter here in the least).