Imagine indeed. It's unimaginable because China is a dictatorship where the leader is able to dictate what private companies do. In such a dictatorship, private companies aren't really private, their speech is controlled by the government and therefore it's unimaginable for a Chinese company to limit the ability of the country's dictator to use an online platform however he wants. Very unlike the United States, where online platforms can do whatever they want when it comes to the leader, including telling them to sod off. You appear to be against the current situation in the U.S. and advocating for the U.S. move toward the situation in a dictatorship like China! I don't have words..... You're a smart guy, I know this because you've been a valuable contributor here for years. Being purposely obtuse doesn't become you. It's really insulting, to you, for me to explain to you that several people died, including a police officer, on Jan 6th. After Trump asked his followers to come stop the electoral vote tally that day and personally gave a speech that was per se designed to get them to go stop the vote tally because that's exactly what they did immediately after hearing him tell them to march up Pennsylvania avenue and do so! This whole cute "He didn't specifically tell them to break down door 3A of the capitol building at 4:05 therefore he didn't really tell them to do it" thing is, again, unbecoming of someone of your intellect.
@kmilkas I have always liked your posts and would like to continue doing so. The more we talk on this the more divisive we will be. You expressed your thought. I expressed mine. Respectfully i will disengage on this topic. I dont want to be trolled. If i have caused grief my sincete apologies.
Private comp regulating on what's right and wrong to say, - hello socialism my old friend. Who's next... ? Musk ? You bet he would say much more, but don't want to loose that cult.
@Sig Nowhere did I make an advocacy towards China... that's entirely untrue and a red herring. I also oppose the violence at the Capitol. I am advocating for Freedom of Speech. I am not clear, specifically, on what Trump said that caused his social media bans. Per your statement here: Would you agree that the following speech what allegedly incited the violence, and ultimately triggered the bans? https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/donald-trump-speech-save-america-rally-transcript-january-6 Thank you, @Girija. It's not personal.
Let's be perfectly clear. 1. You are advocating for a universe where TWTR, a private company, is not allowed to tell the leader of the country where it is based that he isn't allowed to use TWTR's services. 2. There are places where private companies aren't allowed to tell the leader of the country where they are based that they're not allowed to use their services. China is one. The rest are all also dictatorships. 3. Free countries allow private companies based in those countries to tell the leader of their country they can't use their service. For any reason or no reason. 4. You are advocating the U.S. follow model 1. That model is followed in dictatorships and not followed in free countries. Therefore you are calling for the U.S. to follow a policy that is universal in dictatorships and universally not the policy in free countries. That's not a "red herring", that's the natural deduction that comes from the position you've taken. Again, stop insulting your intelligence with this obtuse "I don't understand what he did" crap. Trump has violated Twitter's TOS on hundreds of occasions, violations that Twitter would and regularly does ban users for. At the point his followers literally attacked the capitol in a mob and killed a police officer after he incited them, Twitter finally enforced their rules on him like they do on everyone else.
Trump posted he would not attend the inauguration and followed it with some more incendiary tweets. Twitter took it to mean shit would go down on the 20th after giving him prior warning to knock it off. edit: Here's the explanation: https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspension.html
Please set aside these communist accusations... they are not relevant; I'm not advocating for communism. Here is my point: Twitter was a centerpiece of Trump's presidency, because it enabled him to deliver a message directly to me. It was tremendous! No crafty editing, biased comments, visual tricks (cranking the color balance so he looked orange), "fake news," or the like that you'll see from the heavily biased CNN, BB, MSNBC, et alia. For example, in 2019, Trump delivered a beautiful Christmas message, but the networks didn't play it at all. Twitter was the one place I could go to get his message as it was said. It was an epic vehicle for Freedom of Speech. A transparent, unaltered message from the desk of The President to mine! I could then form my opinions based on a true source. There was a certain trust and understanding in place: Twitter was to relay the Tweets--not filter, judge, or edit--just send the message to the followers. Just like a browser is not responsible for the page that User loads. When Trump's account was suspended, Twitter violated this trust, and it goes way WAY beyond their corporate policy. That's why the Right is furious, and screaming censorship. Twitter was the one vehicle that could be relied on for avoiding bias. Without Twitter, the Right is left without a true voice. Worse yet, Twitter cannot be trusted in the future, hence the title of this post. They cheated. They've alienated a huge chunk of their users; specifically, half of United States voters! The only thing left to do is to form new Social Media platforms, with proper ownership, that technically cannot be shut down or censored. This is a watershed moment for Social Media, and perhaps even big tech. The fallout will be felt in the markets.
In the olden days, in a galaxy far away a long time ago (read: pre-2016), it was called a presidential address to the nation, in front of a TV camera, and broadcast to the world, live. There was a world before social media. Just because it exists now does not mean that it must be used to the exclusion of all other mediums.
Listen, I get what you're saying. The problem is that what you want has massive consequences that you are ignoring. I'm most decidedly not making "accusations", I simply set out a clear chain of logic, which is unfortunately inconvenient for you because it highlights these consequences. I'd respectfully ask you to actually address my logic and either agree that it is sound or point out where it is specifically in error. What you're asking for requires that the government dictate that private companies can't turn down that country's leader's ability to say anything they want through their company's product. There's no debating that. The countries whose governments dictate that private companies can't turn down that country's leader's ability to say anything they want through their company's product are all dictatorships (communism has nothing to do with it). There's no debating that. Therefore what you're advocating, unfortunately and as what I'm sure is an unanticipated (by you) consequence, is in common with what dictatorships all do and the opposite of what free countries all do. That also is beyond debate. So yeah, I get that you don't like that fact and you'd rather I stop pointing it out to you. It doesn't make the fact go away. And it's absolutely relevant when you ask us to take an action that is only currently done in dictatorships and not in free countries. We're a free country. The right can be furious, and they can act on that fury by ceasing to use Twitter's services and by building their own server farms and setting up their own services. But again, we're a free country, which means they can not dictate that a private company carry any speech by that country's leader simply because they want the world to work that way. Sorry, again that's what dictatorships do and therefore not what my country does and I don't think something you really want either once you stop and actually think through the actual consequences of what you're proposing. BTW, it's a massive assumption that half the country's voters (actually 48%) are furious about this. I personally know plenty of folks who voted for Trump and are relieved that he can no longer spew his vitriol on Twitter. And even if all Trump voters stopped using Twitter, you're making a massive assumption that that represents 48% of Twitter's users let alone those responsible for 48% of Twitter's page view revenue.