We Should be Dancing in the Streets about Trump's Suspension from Twitter
Just think, Trump has finally been held accountable for his actions, just like the rest of us suspended, former Twitter users. We should be dancing in the streets rather than getting “emotional” about a private, for profit corporation, using it's “legal power” to punish those that break their rules.
We should be celebrating Trump was held accountable, at all, for anything and is paying a price for his bad behavior. Personally, I'm just pissed it's taken so long, not to mention I got suspended for saying one of the 7 words you can't say on TV while Trump incited insurrection that got people killed!
What is wrong with people?
Trump suspension from Twitter has nothing to do with the 1st amendment. NONE, NADA, ZIP, N-O-T-H-I-N-G !
No one has a constitutional nor “legal” right to use twitter.
Social Media, despite what many people “feel”, is not a public utility. No one has a “right” to use any social media what-so-ever. You only have the “privilege” to use it, if, and only if, YOU AGREE TO THE TERMS OF SERVICE. Unless of course you can afford the internet service and electricity required to use it or find public access to it via a library or, well Starbucks.
What you “feel” about it really doesn't change the legality of it, and that's what matters. Trump suspension was very simple, he violated their rules and they punished him for it.
Again, we should be dancing in the street someone had the audacity to actually hold him accountable and make him pay some kind of price!
My god, how many of our fellow Americans are dead because no one, not even Dr. Fauci, has held him accountable, for anything. FUCK!
[video:https://youtu.be/D5qT2C_Ggpg]
I'm loving it!
Jaffa Kree, premium chronic for everybody!
Comments
dancing in the streets
If you recall, I did celebrate that fact:
[video:https://youtu.be/pRhjWdr-LAA]
And we should be dancing in the streets.....
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJhirHCgORQ]
.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVRPW3RAQXY]
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
@thanatokephaloides Dead Head fur sure!
Dead Head fur sure!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Yes, I'm the one who refuses to celebrate.
Having no interest in "celebrating" the fact that a private corporation can (and often does) control whether or not people can say anything in this country.
And, to answer the portion of RR's essay that you quote, I'd say that "what we feel about it" does matter, unless you're interested in promoting and defending the status quo. Saying "but it's legal! it doesn't matter what you feel!" could be said just as factually about the Patriot Act, indefinite detention, and the president being able to assassinate whomever he pleases with drones. All those things have been deemed legal by Congress and our courts. As has constant warrantless surveillance of all of us, treating us like criminals. Since when do we just say "Welp, it's legal! Our feelings and thoughts about it don't matter!"
If we're going to say that, we may as well shut the site down today.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The founding fathers have an excuse
In their world no one had so much money that they could prevent others from having rights, they had to use government power to enforce their will for them. It was up to later generations to transform America from a republic to a plutocracy. Through reading history they were aware of the concept, but the examples were so short lived and so catastrophic they didn't believe that any society would consent to the establishment of one. And if a society consented to something so abhorant then either its people would overthrow it or they would deserve their fate. Here comes the test.
On to Biden since 1973
I’m imagining Benjamin Franklin being flummoxed and dumbfounded
when one evening, out of nowhere a redcoat from “Britter” knocks on his workshop door, muscles his way in, confiscates Franklin’s ink and paper supply, and padlocks the printing press.
“Who ordered this, Master Ben? The Crown?”
“Nay, lad. Even independence wouldn’t help. Britter’s a private outfit. Biggest stockholder, the East India Trading Company. Nothing we can do.”
celebration
So what do you suggest we do, as a nation and as a people, to make people render their just responsibilities for what they say and write, especially in public?
When the things that someone says result in violence and deaths -- as Donald Trump's Tweets have -- that someone needs to be held to account for his words. That's not an opinion, but a fact. Whether or not anyone accepts the fact, words are things of power and there are and must be limits on how they are used. And calls to violence against un-armed, non-violent citizens are, and must forever remain, outside those limits.
Freedom of speech carries with it certain responsibilities. In earlier times, most public speakers and writers kept censorship at bay by using simple good taste and common respect, much like we do here on c99. (In other words, they censored themselves, and by doing so kept themselves free from censorship.) But since 1980, in the era of shock arts, this has disappeared; and with the failure of individuals to show some taste and restraint in their public language has come the loss of the freedom of expression that only Americans over the age of 55 can even remember.
That we need to rely on a private, for-profit corporation's moves to isolate itself from civil tort liability for The Donald's calls for violence to finally hold him to account does seriously suck. But Ranting Rooster's still right: that someone, anyone, was able to so hold him to account and make it stick is something to celebrate. Unless, of course, you advocate socially chaotic violence, which I don't.
The real key answer to this set of problems here in the short run is more places like c99, accessible to all and providing the maximum freedom of speech possible under a set of very reasonable conditions -- good taste and mutual respect -- designed to preserve those freedoms. In the long run, we need to enforce those same standards on the whole of the blogosphere and all social
diseasemedia. As to how the latter is to be accomplished, I have no idea; but it must be done if we are to have any freedom at all online."US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Thank you, than,
for what I experience as such a clear voice of reason and constructive insight.
I suggest that someone other than a multinational
corporation run by a billionaire should control public conversation.
As for Trump inciting people to violence, and as for us taking responsibility for the power of words, we have laws to deal with incitement to riot:
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2101
If Trump did that, which is arguable, he should be punished by due process. Although, of course, what constitutes an actual incitement to violence--versus simply saying something unpalatable to the elites--should be a matter of constant discussion in both the courts and the press, for as long as the republic lasts. With that caveat--that we can never relax our vigilance on this issue, because it contains multiple slippery slopes--the courts should be the ones to prosecute this. We can and should also express our disapproval of such misuse of speech, and call it out, like Murrow calling out McCarthy.
I don't see a problem with any of that, except the inherent problem of the slippery slopes, which is why the issue needs to be continually revisited.
The problem is that the platform for public conversation is entirely privately owned, and that the owners of social media and traditional media corporations basically control access to the public square, which means they control the people's ability to converse with one another and to express their views. In effect, there is, not a monopoly, but a cartel controlling the majority of our conversations. Jack Dorsey and his board should not have this level of control over public speech, and neither should any of the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. And, as I said, they have already proved themselves not to be good-faith actors, given their shadowbannings of people on the independent left. And there's the rub--Trump is a member of the 1%, and will likely be able to find other ways to get his disgusting words out into the world, whereas ordinary people who get censored, shadowbanned, etc., will likely not.
All of this is in aid of making us all cheer on censorship and embrace the control that Silicon Valley has over what we can and cannot say. That's the takeaway--not whether or not Trump's words are noxious; the fact that they are is brutally obvious.
One of the great things about Occupy is that it recreated the public square and public discourse, and got Americans talking to each other face to face about their lives and their world.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Precisely; btw, have you noticed the repugs are attempting to
switch the conversation from inciting violence to a free speech one; sneaky, those bloviators.
Let's make hay with the powers at hand. Put it to the damn enablers and republicans, stop the lies and madness. Afterward, we go to work fixing important things like writing new legislation dealing with these conglomerates.
Thanks for this essay.
Of course, one could have both discussions
since both discussions are pertinent, current, and reflect on situations that are truly alarming.
Is this shaping up to be an opposition between supporting censorship and supporting the incitement of violence? In other words, are we supposed to be choosing between supporting stochastic terrorism and supporting corporate censorship? Because, if so, may I refer you to the words of Mr. Zack La Rocha in my sig code: None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Oppose, because I believe Fiorella Isabel who says this is a lie
[video:https://youtu.be/IGIOJcOfT7o]
A convenient lie for anti-Trump purposes, but still a lie.
Apologies,
I really don't mean to shoot the messenger, but that was painful.
Inciting insurrection, for me, is not about 1 single event. Trump has been "inferring" insurrection for the last year at least. However, since I, like Trump, have been banned from our twitter accounts, I don't have access to my quick links to support my counter argument.
Consider back in June, Trump invoked the insurrection act of 1807 to counter the George Floyd Protests, but gee, the Capital of the "Greatest Nation" on earth was breached, and yet Trump did nothing.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
How do you characterize Trump's actions of the past 2 months?
I would like to hear your take on his refusal to concede, bogus election fraud claims, attempts to coerce officials in Georgia to overturn the election, and telling supporters in DC on Jan 6 that he would walk to the Capitol with them but then chickening out.
Of course, I see that entire line of reasoning
as basically being off topic, since the issue here is whether or not it's OK for private corporations to own the right to free speech, and turn it on and off like a faucet according to the whims of their boards.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Off topic?
It is entirely germane. The things I listed are part of the reason he was banned, albeit much later than he should have been, from Twitter. So yes, this are directly related to censorship of Trump by a private corporation.
To be honest, though, your comment smells strongly of goalpost moving since you blithely redefined the discussion as "whether or not it's OK for private corporations to own the right to free speech, and turn it on and off like a faucet according to the whims of their boards". Nobody agrees with that.
But that is what Twitter does.
When they ban people, they are turning free speech on and off like a faucet. The question is, how do you deal with rotten, bad actors and still preserve free speech? That's the heart of the matter. The heart of the matter isn't the specifics of one rotten guy, even if he is the president.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
If you are basing your claim of Trump
attempting to coerce Georgia officials into reversing the election...
On Trump's call to Raffensberger I call BS - and invite anyone interested to read the transcript of the call which is available here
- Donald Trump to Brad Raffensberger
Ok, it's really time to look at whether these virtual
monopolies are Common Carriers or not.
Common Carrier Definition
The case is made for regulation or break up. They can't have it both ways.
Trump should have been warned and removed after killing foreign (leading) people i.e. the latest horror: killing Solemani. Threatening BLM is beyond ok. Plenty of previous opportunities.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
That would be good.
If we had a two-party system, we might be able to get some action on that.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Double standard...
It is abundantly clear that the social media TOS's are not being uniformly applied.
BLM were behaving far worse than those "storming" the Capitol - they should have been
threatened with prosecution for the numerous crimes they were committing. Where were the bans for promoting violence then? People all over social media (and more than a few here) were lauding or rationalizing it.
What do you think are the chances this former high-ranking NIH official will be banned for wishing horrific violence on Senator Josh Hawley for simply *doing his job*?
Minimal, I'm betting.
source
@edg Heck, over the last few
Heck, over the last few months as you describe, imho, his behavior has been nothing short of sedition, to inciting rebellion and insurrection, and worthy of prosecution as such.
Over the last year, gross dereliction of duty, worthy of prosecution.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
@edg If the 4th Estate
If the 4th Estate (media) were actually focused on reporting the news, rather than "if it bleeds, it leads" entertainment then they would have been holding Trump accountable all along the way and we'd be fine. The unfortunate fact that they've abandoned that role still doesn't justify censorship of opinions & personalities we don't like in the public square. That road leads to totalitarian control of all public speech.
We were told for four years that our election system was so wack
and full of holes that Russia swung 2016 for Trump and against Hillary, and even changed vote totals in voting machines (polls have shown many Democrats do actually believe that).
The 2016 and 2020 Democratic primary process in all its various stages was, as we all know, rigged against Bernie. Gore and Kerry were very probably cheated by state-level rigging in 2000 and 2004. To give the devil his due, even Nixon was probably cheated in 1960 by Chicago mayor Richard Daley’s machinations.
Upshot: over the years, large swathes of the 99% across the spectrum had already become convinced that the U.S. is an oligarchy rather than a democracy and that our elections are rigged. I first read about an urban Democratic political machine rigging an election as a kid in the 1950s (!), in the humorous novel Let George Do It! by a former Democratic governor of Massachusetts.
So once again, as with other issues, in questioning election integrity Trump didn’t stir up or incite anything; rather, he tapped into a groundswell of disaffection that had already been building for years.
Isn’t it about time some high-profile national leader stood up and said, hey, the system is rigged? It would have been nice if that leader had been a Bernie Sanders, a Dennis Kucinich, a Cynthia McKinney, a Ron Paul, or a Tulsi Gabbard, but their respective wings of the duopoly ate them alive and left them on the sidelines.
Why is it that Trump is the first president in my lifetime to stand and fight and question the rigged system, just as he was the first person to say a lot of things (frequent phrasing in the press: he “says the quiet parts out loud”) that needed to be said? Why is that wrong? I waited 15 years for a Democrat to say, for example, that no, actually GWB didn’t protect us, on the contrary, 9/11, the anthrax scare, etc. happened on his watch — when it finally was said on national TV, it was Trump saying it to “Jeb!” Bush.
To top it off: this is all a distraction from larger questions such as, why does it take someone like Trump, a billionaire, to risk it all and put his neck on the line to highlight the working class’s frustration and fury at its decline, while “progressives” can’t even agree to #ForceTheVote for single-payer healthcare in a pandemic? As Fiorella Isabel said, progressives in her region couldn’t even get more than a few hundred to show up for M4A, let alone coming together for a mass demonstration of 150,000 in Washington D.C.
This is a good point.
Though the problem is, I don't actually believe Trump was cheated last year, so it makes it all the more unfortunate that he is challenging the rigged system; indeed, my guess is that the reason he's been allowed to do so is precisely because there is no there, there; the people who have a real case, genuine fraud, never get very far at all. It was all out in plain view in 2016; they actually brought a lawsuit in the NY primaries, because there was so much wrongdoing (this is before Niko House's lawsuit against the DNC), and they tried to get the judge to stop the vote count until they could address the issues of both fraud and what you might call willful sabotage of polling places.
The judge, of course, dismissed the whole thing on a technicality, saying they didn't have legal standing because they needed to bring a separate case for each county in NY, and refused to halt the election process until that was done.
Every instance of election fraud since Bush v Gore has ended the same way, no matter how blatantly the fraud is done (for instance, declaring a winner before the votes are finished being counted). There has to be someone, either in the press or in the courts, who finds some technicality that makes it inappropriate or impossible to address the issue, and then the whole thing gets flushed down the memory hole. Like the two Bush election frauds have been; most people I know ranted about Trump's cheating in 2016 in the same conversation that they waxed nostalgic about how much better Bush was than Trump, and how they hadn't known how good they had it.
I guess racism and election fraud is more palatable if you have a modicum of manners.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Thanks Lotlizard.
This young woman and her site are new to me. She is right, we must unite the whole underclass and act together. Most people in the U.S. don't realize they are part of the underclass, but the pandemic and unemployment are bringing it home to more people. The confusion, both unintentional and intentional, makes recognizing the real enemy difficult but not impossible.
One big problem with the insurrection is that much of the crowd seemed to have very uncritically accepted Trump's lies as fact. I have seen numerous people talking about "the steal" but unable to describe how or when it happened and precisely who did it. They just state it as a fact. An ability to at least see that someone is lying to you is necessary to any realization of the truth of an assertion.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
Opposition to Trump has suffered from the same problem, though
and that over Trump’s entire term. For instance, it would probably be equally true to say that
Also, isn’t it inevitable that most working-class people struggling to survive would be less able to articulate details of issues than people in the PMC (professional-managerial class), who have more time, resources, and dare I say “privilege” at their disposal.
Another version
Dancing around the bigger issues
question everything
I think I get you.
But I wanna know for sure, as the song says.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Newspapers, radio and TV are also not public utilities
Nor is C99. Be careful - goose and gander....
I'm thinking the current situation requires a color identification. Any suggestions?
There is only one public media company with national
reach--the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a non-profit corporation invented by Congress in a kindlier time. They run PBS and NPR. They were effectively intimidated into compliance with whichever strong man currently runs the government back when Bush was in office, and have never recovered. If you doubt that, watch the first presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney, and watch Romney bullying the moderator, Jim Lehrer; at the very end, after Romney has spent the entire debate running all over both Lehrer and the rules, Romney threatens to defund PBS if he becomes President. He knew why Lehrer was allowing him to break the rules and run all over him--Lehrer was scared of just that. And Romney, being a bully, couldn't help but rub his face in it. But by that time, PBS had been well neutered anyway.
Therefore, almost all venues of communication about political matters in this country are "private." The private sector owns our ability to find out the facts about our politics and, to a large extent, owns our ability to talk to each other about it. This situation is obviously counter-indicated if you want to have a republic, or have a system in which working people can even know what is going on, much less have any way of participating in the public sphere. In fact, it's a toxic situation which has led us to lose most of our liberty and property, and has caused many of us to lose our lives. It is, arguably, the reason that we had a Trump presidency in the first place.
Sorry! EDIT here because I ascribed a position to CB which isn't his/hers.
It's more than a little shocking that RR is relying on that fact to justify an act of censorship. IANAL, of course, but as far as I know, you're right about private companies not having to respect our freedom of speech. But since private companies own 90% of the platforms around, that is a problem; it essentially means that there is effectively no such thing as freedom of speech.
If you have no problem with having corporations be able to control what people can and cannot say in the public square, or if you have no problem with there being no public square, then I'd say you could not support either a republic or a democracy. You cannot have a republic, a democracy, or any system in which the people are empowered, if private firms control what the people can and cannot say. What you have, in that situation, is an oligarchy. What we have, arguably, is an oligarchy. Are you interested in defending the oligarchy in which we reside? I'm not.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
This is such an excellent point
Nailed it.
Thanks, Snoop.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Public speech peaked around the time proselytizing Hare Krishna
devotees were a common sight in airport terminals, soliciting for donations (1970s?).
IIRC that came about because of a liberal court ruling somewhere along the lines of airports being a form of public square or space, and free speech being meaningless unless it also includes a right to operate in such public areas.
Later with Reagan the legal trend would go the other way, in favor of security regulations and private property rights. Very hard to find Girl Scouts selling cookies or Salvation Army Santa Clauses collecting for charity on a public sidewalk now; the “public spaces” with the desired levels of foot traffic are now all privately owned (shopping-mall interiors / big-box store parking lots).
The idea of “free speech being meaningless unless it also includes a right to operate in such public areas” (in whatever lawyerly words it was actually formulated; IANAL), despite formal private ownership, always struck me as a very enlightened one. Whatever happened to nullify that doctrine, I was sad to see it abandoned.
Break them up. Or regulate them under Common Carrier.
Yes, excellent point well-stated.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
TV and Radio
do use Public Air waves, something many have forgotten. They make a tremendous profit and "program" our minds, and control much of the "public discourse", from exploiting a genuine public resource.
Interesting reading from WaPo's Archive - 1987:
(Bold mine)
TV and radio get to use our air waves, free, and make a huge profit, while we the people get "Ministry of Truth", i.e. MSM.
Think for a moment, what happens when someone violates the FCC "rule" over using one the 7 words you can't say on TV / Radio before 10pm? They get punished. If they violate the rule over and over, they get banned.
Everyone in the MSM is upset / stirring up manufactured controversy about Trump being "censored" or his "1st amendment rights" have been usurped, for violating Twitters rules, while exposing themselves as the hypocrites they truly are, from their silence of, or slandering of, Julian Assange, whose been rotting in prison for what seems like forever, for simply publishing the actual truth.
Censorship my dying ass!
Trump can call a press conference anytime he wants, and the million dollar media types will shit themselves, falling over one another, to get a front row seat.
But, I mean, hey, it's like finally
, someone had the guts to tell him NO! It's about time someone told this child to go stand in the corner! He doesn't have the right to stir up trouble and not pay a price. That is coddling a spoiled brat!
I was received well here at C99 after getting banned from TOS (That Other Site, we shall not name openly lol!) and grateful I'm still allowed to rant like a part time raving lunatic I know I am.
But it boils down to this, this is Jtc's site, he sets the rules, I cross them at my own risk. I accept that.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Well said.
Truth has never been a high priority for commercial media, but they did behave more responsibly after passage of New Deal regulations and they did employ a few journalist -- print and broadcast -- that had high standards for truthful and honest reporting. Both are now long gone and all the public gets is politicized BS from both sides of the aisle. In part because neither side represents anything admirable and worthy of them being in office.
And it began with Reagan.
He got rid of the fairness doctrine and Clinton and all the rest continued the work of making the media free of any public responsibilities.
-Greed is not a virtue.
-Socialism: the radical idea of sharing.
-Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.
John F. Kennedy, In a speech at the White House, 1962
That may have worked fine when we had 50
different media organizations reporting the news, competing with each other, and reflecting the views of very different people; when we also had Americans discussing politics in bars and most of our public interactions were not online.
If there's public space that is not controlled by private firms--or the government--and the people have the time, health, and money to be able to use that public space, it's one thing. If the facts are reported to the people by many different competing businesses with different interests, it's one thing.
But when Americans discuss news and politics primarily online, and online is almost entirely controlled by private firms, that means that the ability to discuss things in the public sphere is under the control of private firms.
If we are going to celebrate that--which is the heart of your essay, that we should celebrate--then we need to acknowledge that we have abandoned the notion of free speech as an outdated concept, made outdated by the advance of technology and the simultaneous, unfortunate right-wing demolition of civilization.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
I dance like that for the Funky Ranting Rooster
[video:https://youtu.be/M1F0lBnsnkE]
Don't believe me, just watch
https://www.euronews.com/live
That's awesome!
Great Video! I always admired Ginger Rogers, she had to do all that dancing backwards, and in high heels! That's a lot harder than it looks! They were such a great dancing team.
I bought ball room dancing lesson for my wife on her 40th birthday. We had such a blast taking dancing lessons together!
That is such a fun video, thanks for that!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Supporting freedom of speech is a moral principle.
It takes more than one loathsome individual abusing his power to get me to give it up.
I think a lot of people feel that way.
Also, many people have a hard time seeing Twitter, who have censored and shadow-banned multiple independent lefties in the past, as the trustworthy good guy company who would only ever censor bad guys like Trump.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Who sees Twitter that way?
If Twitter shut down tomorrow, I wouldn't notice it was gone. Or TBH, I might, if only to cheer Twitter's demise. It pisses me off that online reporters now think embedding half a dozen tweets from people I never heard of is somehow news. Especially when they then repeat the text of the tweet word for word in their "article". Grrrr.
There are two separate issues here.
First, as I said earlier, most people have only places like Twitter, YouTube, and Reddit if they want to express their views in the public sphere. Those are the platforms they have if they want to express themselves and converse with their fellow citizens about their nation.
The second issue is the way RR described the situation:
We should be celebrating Trump was held accountable, at all, for anything and is paying a price for his bad behavior.
In that sentence, Twitter is the one "holding Trump accountable" and making him "pay a price for his bad behavior." That makes Twitter a just authority figure, doing what is right, and restraining the evil wrongdoer. Like a local lord bringing a brigand to justice. We like our local lord. Ain't he great? He brought that nasty brigand in and hung him. Good riddance!
I agree with you that Twitter is loathsome, which is why I left four years ago. But again, that's not the point. People wouldn't rely on Twitter if they had anything else, but they don't. CPB had its knees broken during the Bush administration; private media sold their souls long ago, and the crap they peddle is so revolting and toxic that people generally either succumb to it, and simply end up repeating the talking points they hear on "the news," or can't stand it, and come to the only places left that allow for free expression and a variety of views. Places like YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and C99. There are obvious differences between C99 and these other places: primarily that C99 is owned by one person who isn't a billionaire, rather than being a multinational corporation owned by the .01%. But from the perspective of an ordinary person who doesn't want to simply parrot the bullshit circulated by the powerful through the corporate, "private" press, those are the places they have to go, and having those places ramp up the censorship is not good news.
Again, if we're all going to support censorship, the ownership of political speech by a handful of private corporations, and the current state of the law in the United States (which is FUBAR), then what's the point of having a C99?
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Well,
bad behavior in this context, is violating published, and accepted "rules".
To me, Twitter banning Trump is simply punishment for crossing the line and violating the rules of a commercial platform, who have the legal right to determine how they operate, and they even explain it, and their rules in the TOS (terms of service)which we have to agree too, to use their service.
Trump "contractually agreed" to abide by their rules but he violated those rules, and at their sole discretion, as their TOS states they have a right to do, punished him for those violations. Being a super genius and especially being "Law & Order" guy, he should understand that, right?
The thing I think you and others misunderstand about "social media", they are not the "public sphere", from a "legal" stand point. They are "owned" intellectual, private property. No one has the right to anothers private property. Right?
There is nothing "public" about them. You can only use them, if you "contractually agree" to their specific terms of usage.
It seems many do not understand, Trump being banned from Twitter, is not a freedom of speech or even censorship or a constitutional right to free speech issue, it's about contract law.
A "contract" between the "user" and the "service" and the terms of using that service spelled out in the TOS (Terms of Service).
Even the president of the United States should be punished for violating the rules! Is that not what Equal Justice Under Law means?
My joy, if you will, at him being punished and held accountable by someone, anyone, is simply because up to this point, NO ONE has held him accountable or made him pay a real price, political or otherwise, for any of his openly, blatant and very real, and deadly, violations of our constitution and our own laws.
The irony in all this is that it took a private, for profit corporation to actually punish him, and fulfill the promise of an American "idea", of Equal Justice Under Law. It's just sad it was "corporate law" that succeeded where civilian law failed.
Which I think is the really, really bigger issue. The civilian rule of law is failing and the Chaos at the Capital is indicative of just how fragile the rule of law has truly become, no?
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
This is not the Way
By censoring Trump, you have also censored all his supporters, which only creates more division and resentment. We need open dialogue and engagement with better ideas, not censorship. This path only leads to disenfranchisement and violence. And we'll be the next group to be censored for disagreeing with the establishment.
Actually, it is the way, of Legal Contracts
This is not censorship. This is about contract law, the contract between a "user" and a "service" and a contractual remedy for multiple "contract violations" by the user.
Twitter and other social media platforms have the LEGAL right to ban users who they deem to have violated their TOS. End of story.
It's right here, number 1. in Twitter's TOS!
(bold mine)
Snip
Twitter has the "legal right" to ban someone for no reason! Let that sink in! That's very explicit! They can cease providing the service for ANY reason and at ANY time. Hello!
To make this about censorship or constitutional rights, is to ignore the legally binding contract a user must sign to use the service. Twitter officially warned Trump, but he pushed further, crossed the line and suffered a legally binding contractual remedy.
We can either live in fear of Trump and his followers or we can engage them with the very Rule of Law they like to claim they want to uphold.
This is the Way, and it's called the Rule of Law!
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
You're Missing the Point
While you are technically correct regarding contract law and the ability for Facebook, Twitter and other to do what they have done, you're missing the point. What good are you hoping to gain from banning Trump? That's the real question here. What we're trying to help you see is that banning Trump and his followers from social media will not result in the good you are hoping for, quite the opposite in fact. It will only make things worse, perhaps exponentially so. Don't miss the forest for the trees. Look at the most likely outcome of these actions and ask yourself if they're really the best move, regardless if they're legal or not. Just because something's legal doesn't mean it's good strategy.
As Fiorella Isabel says, imprison Trump—but that’s NOT justice,
NOT accountability, just revenge, if we don’t also imprison Obama, Biden, Rumsfeld, Cheney, and George W. Bush.
And I (and a lot of people in Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Latin America, … etc.) would agree.
I've already acknowledged that you're right about the law.
You seem to assume that freedom of speech is important because it's part of the law. Whereas I see freedom of speech as a principle important in itself, which is *why* it's part of the law.
If the law does not protect freedom of speech adequately, it's the law that needs to change. Given that private corporations now arguably wield as much power over speech as the government, it's past time for the law to be updated. But looking at the people who control what laws get made, it's beyond pointless to ask them to craft a decent policy.
The issue here is not whether or not Twitter has a legal right to shut down Trump. The issue here is that you have told us all what response we "should" have to all this, and that response is unadulterated celebration. I'm arguing that celebration is only a reasonable response to this Twitter ban if you're OK with the privatization of public discourse. We've already had the privatization of politics (the Democratic party is not required to give you a competitive primary because they're a private club) and the privatization of voting, (we don't get to look at the software that runs the machines that count our votes because it belongs to ES&S). Now we've got the privatization of political speech. Honestly, I'm not sure it even matters whether Congress makes a law to restrict free speech. Why would they need to? Their friends in the private sector can do it for them, with no accountability whatsoever as to who they do it to or why.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Hope you don’t mind
I tweeted this
I don't mind.
Thank you.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
No, we shouldn't because we'll be next...
I honestly can't believe the short-sightedness of so many "progressives" who are celebrating Trump being banned from Twitter. Do you not realize that this is the establishment at work and that we will be next? Sure, Trump's an irresponsible ass, but the antidote to bad speech is dialogue with better speech, not censorship.
"Fire and fury"
If Twitter were at all serious about their claim that this was to protect people, OR about accountability, they would've swatted him back when he was THREATENING NUCLEAR WAR WITH A HOSTILE FOREIGN POWER (true, he would go on to become the "best" POFT with regards to the Korean front in 70 frickin' years, but I'm talking about before that development).
Doing it NOW, only when he's almost gone and they don't have to deal with him in the government anymore? It's just typical corporate-sociopath calculated cowardice. The decision was probably run by their accounting department first, if that isn't exactly where it was drawn up.
Did they do it BEFORE, or AFTER the Electoral College results were certified by Congress? Betcha they wouldn't have done it if there was a snowball's chance he had 4 more years (and in 2024, who knows???).
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
This, also, is a good point
though I think we're on opposite sides of this controversy, I applaud you for calling out hypocrisy.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
Well, in the absence of substantive utility in what they did...
...isn't the only thing left to be concerned about the danger of an increased precedent for a nascent Ministry of Truth?
That said, maybe it's neither/nor; they just look bad, and no greater harm OR good is done than already has been done/is being done by other means. Is Big Social Media not notorious for inconsistent and nonsensical moderation (I heard they once permabanned a Japanese user for Tweeting a "death threat" against a mosquito in his room)? I sure hope that's the case; the REAL problem is that people are treating Twitter like a source of information rather than a massive rat-king of groupthink and gossip that makes 4Chan look coherent (it's certainly managed to do a lot more good in its time) and should itself be banned. #DePlatformThePlatform
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
There is no accountability for the big lies told *against* Trump
such as four years of Russiagate, is there.
Don’t people see the continuous weaselly pivoting going on? Yesteryear, we were supposed to hate Trump because he was a Russian asset. Today we’re supposed to hate Trump because he dared to make a stand and question the dodgy election processes that cheated Bernie twice, very probably cheated Gore and Kerry, and, as we were told for four years, cheated Hillary Clinton because it was somehow manipulated by Putin.
Polls? I’m sure locking up Japanese-Americans in concentration camps also polled well in 1942. FDR could do no wrong, as far as people were concerned. Even Dr. Seuss was only too happy to draw cartoons promoting sending “Japs” to camps based on lies.
I understand that everyone hates Trump and is willing to go along with any pretext that promises sweet, sweet revenge. There may well even be a modicum of justice in it. But I’m in “A Man for All Seasons” mode:
Tell me, how would you hold Goebbels accountable
for asking "Wollt Ihr den totalen Krieg? (Do you want total war?)" and the Germans were enthusiastically saying 'yes'?
I mean, poor Mr. Goebbels just exercised his 'freedom of speech rights' and incited wwII, who would be against giving him those rights? No biggie to incite wwII, no?
https://www.euronews.com/live
The thing is, I believe Fiorella Isabel’s video report here
Worth listening all the way to the end, if you haven’t already seen it.
[video:https://youtu.be/IGIOJcOfT7o]
She is a left Latina activist and independent journalist. She was there in Washington DC. She says Trump’s speech was held four miles away. She reports that almost none of the people in Trump’s original audience were part of the crowd around the Capitol. It was a totally separate group who were already there when the few stragglers who made it all the way from the site of the speech finally arrived.
Basically, all Trump urged his audience to do was walk in a demonstration of solidarity — that’s not Goebbels, that’s Monday evening marches in Leipzig 1989.
As far as Goebbels starting a world war — wouldn’t that apply more to Trump’s opponents for the last four years? The people who have been reporting Russiagate lies as fact? The people who keep trying to inflate the latest accusation against Russia and Putin into the equivalent of a new Pearl Harbor?
so, I now listened to the first 30 minutes of the video
I think I get the drift of what she wants to say. I don't disagree with what she explained. But it's just too much talking for me. I would think a good reporter could make the points she makes with less words. That's all.
I really don't give a damn if Trumps talks on twitter or not. He can talk wherever he wants to. I don't have to support what he says. I gave a damn about what he said on twitter and how he said it. "Der Ton macht die Musik".
I made it to TC 28 of her talking, I try to do the rest tomorrow. I doubt that it helped me understanding something that I didn't understand already before.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Are these the words now judged to be just the same as Goebbels?
https://rumble.com/vcn44t-trump-said-cheer-on-congress...-be-peaceful-be...
If they were alive today, would Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stokely Carmichael, Gil Scott-Heron, etc. etc. be allowed on Twitter? Would Silicon Valley and its present cheerleaders say, “No! Ban them! They’re like Goebbels!” because some of the things they said to inspire, educate, and mobilize people could possibly be interpreted as justifying wrongful and violent acts?
We know the answer: no, they wouldn’t be allowed. They would be classified as domestic terrorists. Anyone calling for, or engaging in, any kind of direct action not pre-approved by the Deep State = a domestic terrorist. How convenient for those at the top, raking in mad profits from the status quo.
Sorry to come back to this so late,
I try to listen to the Latina leftist activist's video (why do you introduce her to me as that and wouldn't let me make my own judgement of where she stands? And no I didn't listen to the whole 1 hour video.) I have to say that fact that she said that 'Trump's speech was four miles away' from the folks maching, I found really so darn stupid and not convincing (the world heard Trumps words and that they were spoken a couple of miles away is terribly important? - Are you kidding me?) that I just shook my head. I am so tired of twisted arguments and tail wiggle-waggling minds, imo at least, that I won't respond to your comment.
You know the text of Trumps words, misses the tune and sounds and in which context they were delivered, it's the difference between looking at a music sheet with notes and listening to the music it makes.
Let's play in another sand box for now, ok? I am tired of playing.
https://www.euronews.com/live
The Rumble link goes to the video of Trump speaking
So I supplied not just the printed words, but video of Trump too; everything is there.
Call Godwin down upon me, then plead being too tired to look at what I offer up in reply, and then run away… (sigh)
edited ok. I try to read and listen again at a later time
I have the right to express that I am too tired, without it seen as running away, or not?
I am tired. People talk too much. You can silence people by talking too much.
I am really tired.
Did I say I want to sleep and that I am tired. And that I don't want to talk?
Repeat, I am tired.
Leave me alone.No, just gimme a break. MMMV. That's all.https://www.euronews.com/live
The power of speech can be abused, certainly.
Preserving freedom of speech while curtailing bad-faith actors is not a neat process, and nobody who wants to do it has a neat answer. Society can't, actually, function if we merely have a free-for-all, so nobody outside of some weird libertarian circles wants to embrace that simple answer. So most people who have, or want, a simple answer to this problem tend to revert to authoritarian suppression of speech. That is, indeed, the simplest way to go about it. In fact, it's the only simple solution around.
The only question is whether you're willing to bear the cost: a society in which speech is controlled by an elite few.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
More More
Great points, LL.
Best to be careful what you hate and what you wish for - many of those consumed with hating Trump and wishing him gone are failing to consider the consequences of succeeding. It's not going to be pretty.
I'd be unsurprised to have other banderas falsas coming up soon. Is anyone remembering the circumstances prevailing when the Patriot Act came in? Drumbeat of propaganda about 9-11, Iraqi WMD's, anthrax being sent to Congress?
Or perhaps more like 1996 when the first World Trade Center bombing, OKC bombing and the militia"threat" were hyped to get the "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act" - which greatly undermined habeas corpus protections, among other nefarious things - passed.
Kind of like deja vu all over again...
Since you mention Thomas More, here's something sort of germane I never got around to posting: the head of the Thomas More Society's Amistad Project explaining their investigations and lawsuits related to the $400 million that Mark Zuckerberg
invested in privatizing the electionmagnanimously contributed to enhancing the election process.(Note - Before Amistad director Phil Kline became a paranoid, unhinged conspiracy theorist attempting to undermine hallowed American institutions with baseless accusations of election illegality, he was Attorney General of Kansas)
Was live-streamed - presentation gets going from about 10:00
Where's the evidence of election fraud?
Seriously, where is it? I'm on record--here and elsewhere--voicing skepticism about the integrity of the electronic systems we use for managing vote collection and tabulation. I'm also on record deploring the expense required for an individual to undertake the investigation necessary to show whether tampering has occurred.
But if anyone has had the cash to do so, Trump and Bernie both have. The fact that neither has seriously pursued the investigations means two things: 1) they simply don't care whether the elections were tampered with (believable, in Bernie's case, because he's a spineless sheepdog; not so much in Trump's); 2) there's nothing there, there (at least, this time).
Courts refusing to open hearings because of “lack of standing”
or on other technical grounds, mean that the plaintiffs never even get a chance to present evidence. Such a decision is in no way the same as a finding that there is “no evidence.”
Plaintiffs bringing allegations of election fraud, whatever their merits, have so far simply, by and large, literally been denied their proverbial day in court. Compared to PMC (professional-managerial class) politics buffs, let alone actual lawyers, Trump’s working-class supporters may not know or be able to argue all the details. But they perceive the overall gestalt, and it’s not good.
I haven’t delved into more than a few postings there myself, but a good collection point for dispassionately cataloging and examining allegations of election fraud and other problems with the process seems to be this one, maintained by the same people who moderate Way of the Bern (WOTB) on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/WOTBelectionintegrity/
They haven’t done the work required
to show fraud, e.g., paid for recounts and statistical studies of the results to identify discrepancies.
Maybe so. But everyone is entitled to appraise the situation
for themselves, investigating further to whatever extent they are willing and able, and then come to their own conclusions, believing what their eyes and gut feel are telling them.
I personally believe the election was rigged. One factor is certainly that, speaking metaphorically, when I put on the Hawaiian spectacles passed down to me by my kūpuna (= elders / ancestors), I see that that is the way the North American dominant culture known as “the U.S.” works, and has always worked.
The interests that have united against Trump are so numerous, huge, wealthy, and powerful and the stakes are so high, it would be a literal miracle if the election were not rigged.
The biggest tell
that there is something to hide is the response of the election officials and governors to those questioning the process - which pretty much uniformly has been to stonewall and they have had plenty of backup from RINO and DINO congresscritters who, if they were concerned about really concerned about about and believed in election integrity, would be all about investigating claims of impropriety - but are not.
Problems with electronic systems are supposed to be auditable if paper ballots are used, but other problems (esp. with mail-in ballots) may also occur - such as ineligible people voting, chain of custody issues in the handling of paper ballots, failure to do or abuse of signature matching, abuse of the adjudication process, etc. In GA, for example, the percentage of ballots rejected by machines and having to have intent judged by a human was 1+% in 2016, 2+% in 2018 and 90+% in 2020 - but in 2020 it was done without being observed by D and R observers.
As LL correctly points out, courts have declined to take on procedural grounds and/or slow walked cases that Trump and others have brought, so not only have they been unable to present what evidence they have, they haven't been afforded discovery - which would give them access to information that SoS's have been withholding.
Still, using publicly available databases and physical canvassing, citizen groups have been able to gather a lot of specific information. In Nevada and Arizona part of the effort is physically canvassing the locations and people on the voter rolls.
Here's a (partial) list of irregularities found in Arizona by volunteers of We the People AZ Alliance - who have sworn affidavits as to their findings:
source
Also, checking registrations a five colleges they found that 60% of those registered there did not and had not attended the school.
A whole lot could be clarified by a forensic analysis of the paper ballots, which may yet proceed in Georgia, but officials there appear to be resisting even that.
Jovan Pulitzer testimony - GA State Senate 12/30/20
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PpyoYlGqBg]
Pulitzer again 1/5/21 - on Dominion and ballot forensics (Pulitzer from about 13:00, but first bit is worth watching as it explains exactly what Ted Cruz was proposing by objecting - which no one criticizing him seems to actually know or care about.)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViJt9gvM1wk]
AZ press conference/rally with testimony from citizen canvassers 12/30/20
(introductory statement by Liz Harris - founder of citizen project at 1:20, accounts from volunteer citizen canvassers from 1:27)
Fauci's complicity
in blocking the availability of cheap and effective therapeutics such as Ivermectin and HCQ has killed a lot more people than Trump ever did - and continues to do so *every day*.
Thanks for that video
Interesting that older people and POC are the hardest hit. Good to know Ivermectin is having this kind of positive effect.
C99, my refuge from an insane world. #ForceTheVote
Accountable? Hardly. He needs to be tried for
incitement of an attempted coup, along with the numerous individuals who perpetuated it.
The fact that democrats are dragging their feet on this, and that Pence hasn't invoked the 25th already, sets a dangerous precedent. And it's also revealing.
Well, that's just it.
If Trump is guilty of the shit they say he is (and it's arguable that he is), this is a matter for the courts.
I suspect that the real aim of all this hullabaloo is to make censorship more acceptable to the American public, and it appears to be working. Trump is a propagandist's dream; he can be used to justify just about anything.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The courts can’t do anything until
Trump’s out of office. I think he should have been out last week. The fact that the democrats are delaying, and two-faced insurance money man Clyburn is whining about Biden’s 100 days is all the indication anyone needs to know how they view Trump’s actions.
They could have reconvened and drafted Articles on Thursday and started a Senate trial on Saturday. That they didn’t is just about an impeachable offense itself, in my view. It’s dereliction of duty to the point of being complicit.
Ever stop to think that maybe Trump is in on it?
He is the perfect patsy to do what he did so that Biden/congress can write more legislation that curtails our rights? It sure seems like a bone headed move for him to make. And from what I understand the congress members questioning the results of the election have every right to do it. But people want them kicked out of congress and charged with sedition and treason. How come no one is explaining how it’s legal? They’re keeping the truth from us to keep everyone riled up.
It could be. Ya never know. But everyone jumping on the‘domestic terrorism' bandwagon and the patriot act 2.0 already being written a year ago. Just in case it’s needed.
I never dance in the street over the loss of the right to
free speech. It doesn't matter if it's by a private corporation or our own government.
This is probably because I'm an atheist who thinks religion and its ideas should be criticized every time they pop up in a public forum.
I'd rather know what Trump and his ilk think in the sunlight than in the shadows.
"Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin
Amendment 1
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
See, congress can't abridge freedom of speech, or abridge other freedoms. We have the Supreme Court to do that.
Or Twitter.
"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha
"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver
The First Amendment guarantees you the right
to talk/write.
It doesn't guarantee you a platform, and it doesn't guarantee you an audience.
It never did, never could, never should, and never will.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.