On Twitter suspending Trump...

No, you're entirely correct. If Trump wasn't POTUS, I'm sure that his account would have been closed down years ago. So this is just Twitter now stopping to make an exception to their rules. I guess some people are shocked for the same reason that his account was allowed to post for as long as it did: they feel that Trump deserves to be exempt from the rules applied to everyone else.

 

This is not a matter of freedom of speech. Freedom of speech means the state can't prosecute your for being an asshole. Most civilized societies which have laws against hate speech or protected classes, don't have freedom of speech, and thank fuck for that (although tentatively, seeing how such legislation is easily pervertible into general censorship by bad faith actors).

This is a matter of a private company doing whatever it has to for the benefit of it its bottom line. Twitter isn't blocking Trump because "he spoke out against tech companies" or anything like that. They're blocking Trump because the gig is up, and blocking him has become a better story. The company protected his rhetoric for four years under the premise that "well, he's the president, so we can't, can we?" He's still president, so I guess you always could, Jack. You just didn't wanna.

 

Yeah, what @catbert said. Freedom of speech is not in play with a private company. Just like Simon & Schuster can decide not to publish Josh Hawley's book because they no longer want to associate with him.

Frankly, I think Trump was given way too much leeway under the guise that he's the President so what he says is newsworthy.

He's a pathological liar, so what he says really isn't very newsworthy unless you need to point out that he's a pathological liar. Unfortunately, half the country already knows that and doesn't need it reinforced and the other half appears to seriously believe his BS.

 

I disagree. While legally that is true, the US Constitution embodies the values of America. So in my opinion a private American company should follow those values (at least in America).

 

Makes sense. Your whole ideology is based around pining for a society which respects law and order and individual freedoms while also disagreeing with both of those concepts, leaving everyone to wonder what exactly is it that you stand for.

 

Where have I disagreed with law and order and individual freedoms?

EDIT: Are you saying that because I disagree that freedom of speech is not in play with private companies? Perhaps I should have been more clear. I'm not suggesting that private companies should be compelled by law to protect freedom of speech, I'm saying that private American companies should uphold the values/rights embodied in the Constitution because those are the American rights that government cannot infringe upon because they were and are considered innate Human rights.

 

So you're not really saying anything other than "it would be nice if Twitter leadership believed in American values and let DJT continue using their platform to encourage seditious behavior in his supporters"?

Gotcha. I guess they thought different.

 

What are you trying to say, that Twitter "cares"? It doesn't.

You're assigning human qualities to what is essentially an advertisement-based business focused on fostering user engagement. A corporation may struggle to make a decision between what's legal and what's good for its bottom line, but it will never have that difficulty deciding between what's "moral" and what's good for business. Every time a corporation ostensibly picks the "moral" side of a dilemma is because it's also good for its bottom line (see Rainbow Capitalism, companies standing up for human rights while exploiting labor in nations which have no concept of human rights, etc). Twitter, as well, doesn't care about the content published on the platform insofar as the content doesn't affect their user engagement. That alone explains everything they do in a very straightforward manner.

When DJT chose Twitter to be his official presidential policy outlet, Twitter platformed him. When acts of violence happened in his name, which he failed to denounce in a decisive manner (Charlottesville, 2017, etc), Twitter platformed him. Now, the gig is literally up, the value of content he generates is about to diminish significantly because it will no longer be an indicative of presidential policy. So Twitter deplatformed him to a resounding explosion of activity from its own community. But hey, they're still giving a voice to the countless representatives and state officials which mirror his sentiments and are vocal about them.

Corporations will see societies burn to the ground before they make a single step to prevent it to the detriment of their quarterly numbers.

 

Everyone should see Arnie's message: https://twitter.com/Schwarzenegger/status/1348249481284874240

 

Hehe, of course not. There already exist sedition laws in the US; if what was said was actually seditious it could be prosecuted and Twitter records could be used for evidence.

And I'm not saying such a weak thing as "it would be nice..."; I'm saying that is actually un-American to not want to uphold the values set forth in the US Constitution.

 

So you're not saying it should be a legal requirement, but you're also not saying that "it would be nice". Explain.

 

BTA, it is decidedly American that private individuals and companies have the right to do business with whom they choose and to not do business with whom they choose as well. The Constitution only governs the government (with some limited exceptions). It is up to the federal and state governments to pass laws to govern the companies and people.

To claim that some company is supposed to believe in American values and comply with portions of the Constitution that simply do not apply to it is odd at best. Republican leaning economists first floated the idea that a company's sole obligation was to its shareholders and increasing their bottom lines, which really was not at all accepted prior to the 60's/70's when it started gaining traction. Once that idea held sway, forcing some company to do something that would negatively impact its bottom line because you want it to uphold American values is actually directly against those American values.

It's just nonsense.

What would be nice, however, is if the F'ing President of the United States actually respected and upheld American values, or at least took his oath to support the Constitution seriously. Same for certain senators and representatives. You want to say that there is some widespread fraud? After 60+ losing lawsuits, if you haven't put up the evidence, it just doesn't exist and only the poor suckers who seem to believe the Big Lie being fed to them actually seem to really believe this nonsense. DJT, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley certainly do not.

 

dmc - Why do you think the Constitution was created? It implemented the values laid out in the Declaration of Independence for the reasons the Founders separated from Great Britain. "..that all men...are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men..." Those "unalienable Rights" are the ones put forth in the Constitution and its Amendments, and Government is instituted to protect those rights. The Government does not grant these rights, we possess them innately as Humans. Those are the most foundational principles of America and is what makes America the unique place it is; and the belief in those founding principles is what makes us truly Americans. It is what defines America as a nation.

What is nonsense is to say that the owners of private companies in America should purposefully violate these "unalienable Rights" and still consider themselves American.

As well, as more and more Americans come to believe that a company is working under un-American business practices, that is when regulations get changed or imposed. If I were the only one to believe these companies are behaving in an un-American manner, then sure, I should be ignored, but as the owners of these companies have been hauled in to Congress to answer for their business practices multiple times, I don't think I'm alone.

As to the evidence of rigging and even the possibility of fraud, as I said similarly before if you believe it doesn't exist, you have not been paying attention. Most (if not all; I'm not sure and don't want to look it all up again) of the battleground states violated their election laws and/or Constitutions to rig the election. As for evidence of fraud, the Data Integrity Group has made many presentations showing from analysis of the official voting data that more than 423,000 Trump votes were removed in Pennsylvania, and similar abnormal things happened in all 5 battleground states as compared to other states. I'll post a Youtube video of an interview with members of the group describing their work at the end; I found it interesting and compelling. Not proof, but certainly enough to get answers to, and yet no answers were apparently forthcoming or even looked into.

Now as to Trump and I would say MOST Senators and Representatives, I agree that they do not take their oaths to uphold the Constitution seriously. They spew platitudes that they do and then do the opposite of what they should.

 

Ah, The Epoch Times.