Trump's executive order on social media

[Fambo Number Mive]

Is this Trump just testing his base to see if they will support a further step towards dictatorship (which many seem to do, they're all for limited government unless it would mean they didn't get to own the libs) or is he serious about this?

I can't see Congress supporting this and even if they did would it not just mean social media countries moving their operations abroad? I guess all Trump could do in that case would be to try and force American internet providers to block the social media websites.

Of course we do not know what is in this planned executive order, if it ever happens.

Twitter could always threaten to close Trump's Twitter account if they are affected by any restrictions, although maybe Trump would just move onto a social media platform mainly used by conservatives where he can have even more of an echo chamber.

It's also ironic how Trump and his supporters support the rights of private businesses to do what they want as long as they agree with them.

I think Twitter is too hands-off, you can't report tweets unless you sign up and there is no specific reporting function for fake news. I wouldn't trust any proposed regulation of Twitter that Trump is involved with though.

Maybe, like "Obamagate", it's another attempted distraction from Trump's failings over the past few months.

I know we have a Trump thread but I thought this specific topic was worth a new thread, especially as social media is key to Trump's success, and it allows him to attack any mainstream media critical of him.

[Ambient Sheep]

If anyone doesn't know what the OP is talking about:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-52815872

[Dewt]

This particular kind of dictatorship is the one way that Trump is uniquely bad compared to other shitty leaders. I hope it's one-off-man-mental stuff instead of him establishing a new norm for future leaders.

[Wonderful Butternut]

I don't think it's necessarily about actually getting a piece of legislation that censures Twitter for being mean to him, as much as hoping to scare Twitter and other social media sites into backing down.

Although I wouldn't put it past him to invoke Emergency Powers or some other bullshit to brute force his way past Congress. And I'd again ask the question at what point do we stop seeing these as tantrums from a giant egotistical man-baby, but instead genuine attempts to turn the US into a dictatorship. I really wonder what'll happen if Biden somehow wins the election. Assuming he lives long enough that is.

It is unlikely that Twitter will actually ban Trump, but if they do, an Alt-Right echo chamber equivalent would have basically zero chance of displacing Twitter, even with him in it.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

He can do anything he wants. Who's going to stop him, his hand picked Supreme Court majority? He could literally end all life on Earth tomorrow if he wanted to.

(Evidently none of this is a concern to people who want to prove a point by laughing at the Democrats lose the next election.)

[touchingcloth]

In an earlier tweet, he said that Twitter was "completely stifling free speech".

Not free speech, is it? It'd be like the government getting involved if someone was unhappy that BAdmin had banned them.

[bgmnts]

Order 66?

[wooders1978]

It's also a little bit about not having people who identify as a deer dictating policy on what is and what isn't acceptable behaviour on social media platforms

[Abnormal Palm]

My bro's mate is on some top EU economic advisory body. He said that Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter dictate to every cunt, not the other way around.

[touchingcloth]

My bro's mate is on some top EU economic advisory body. He said that Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter dictate to every cunt, not the other way around.

He's not wrong. We had a thread on here which I can't find now, but it was about the "smart city" Google was trying to setup in Toronto, where the only usable currency would be whatever the Android version of Apple Pay is, as just one of the many, many, many privacy concerns.

Beeb link about the same thing: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-47815344

[Norton Canes]

I hope the XO is to close down Twitter. Otherwise Trump's a complete pussy.

[Mobius]

The Trump Vs Twitter war escalates

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1266231100780744704

[Fry]

Hilarious move. He and his base will be incredibly angry - probably more so than if they just banned him. And there's not even the benefit of the tweet being gone.

[Bernice]

The worrying thing about Trump and the unwavering base level of support he's had (from the public and the GOP) throughout his many indiscretions and tantrums is that of he was just a little smarter and less capricious you feel like he could have turned the US full fascist by now without much of an issue.

[BlodwynPig]

It's so yawnsome I could die.

[idunnosomename]

Trump is such a silly old cunt but at least hes sharper than alan sugar

[Zetetic]

Not free speech, is it? It'd be like the government getting involved if someone was unhappy that BAdmin had banned them.

Usual painfully obvious point: Twitter is more like a public space than Cook'd and Bomb'd.

Some of the discussion about what the Executive Order might look like touches on this, in fact - one possible approach by the Trump Administration being to argue that fact-checking is equivalent to editorial control, such that Twitter is no longer protected by Section 230 of the US's Communications Decency Act.

This sort of thing is one way of drawing the distinction between semi-private spaces - where the owner might have some liability for what people say and do in them - and privately-owned public spaces or networks - where the owner is generally protected from liability but is limited in how prejudicial they can be.

Edit: I'm clearly about 12 hours out of date, apologies - it's exactly this:
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/500006-trump-signs-order-targeting-social-media-firms-legal-protections

[Bernice]

Aside from scale, what is that distinction?

[Zetetic]

I think scale is clearly a large part of it, but there's something about how spaces are designed, whether they claim to be for a particular audience, and the type of interactions that they foster which might distinguish between something closer to a network or distributor, versus a forum (for example).

I think in the physical world, we can distinguish between someone's massive estate and, say, Canary Wharf. (Even if we don't think people should own massive estates.)

[Bernice]

Twitter have now hidden one of Trump's tweets about the Minneapolis protestors for "glorifying violence" ("when the looting starts, the shooting starts")

[Sebastian Cobb]

when the looting starts, the shooting starts"

literally the sort of thing the president in Escape from LA would say.

[Sebastian Cobb]

https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-headlines-mark-zuckerberg-satire-test-facebook-policies-2020-5?utm_source=reddit.com&r=US&IR=T


For all the legitimate criticism of Twitter failing to handle abuse on their platform and their arbitrary application of rules they look practically honourable compared to Facebook and Alphabet.

[idunnosomename]

Hope ben garrison does a cartoon with big muscley trump standing up to fire breathing twitter bird.swwoon

[Mobius]

literally the sort of thing the president in Escape from LA would say.

https://mobile.twitter.com/donwinslow/status/1266243601652084736

Trump knows all the racist deep cuts

[dissolute ocelot]

If Trump doesn't like Twitter he can go use Gab like all the other right-wing loons. I hear Glindr is still in operation too.

[Cuellar]

Let's be honest, who wouldn't like Twitter to fuck off entirely. If Trump can accomplish this before November, he's got my vote.

I see the quisling Germans have already gone tugging their forelocks to Twitter saying if big bad Trump bans them they can operate from Germany.

Scum.

[Butchers Blind]

I'm all for people upsetting Trump, if its Twitter so be it.

[the]

My bro's mate is on some top EU economic advisory body. He said that Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter dictate to every cunt, not the other way around.

Though they're all American companies. And considering they operate executively on US soil and according to US law, if one party (out of the US govt and the tech companies) was in a position to significantly exert pressure on the other, I think I know which one it is.

This of course ignores that the companies are totally porous to the US govt in terms of accessing any data for security/surveillance/intelligence, so the idea of a 'President vs. Twitter' battlefield is like a Punch & Judy show out the front for the kiddies. Have your editorial wankfight, everyone's shagging out the back.

[idunnosomename]

LOL THE ORANGE BABY HAVIN A TANTRUM!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MASSIVE BANTS

[Kryton]

https://www.businessinsider.com/fake-headlines-mark-zuckerberg-satire-test-facebook-policies-2020-5?utm_source=reddit.com&r=US&IR=T


For all the legitimate criticism of Twitter failing to handle abuse on their platform and their arbitrary application of rules they look practically honourable compared to Facebook and Alphabet.

That's fucking ace!