So Twitter just announced that it suspended President Trump’s account and man he must be furious… and I don’t feel bad at all that it gives me great joy lol!
Twitter permanently suspended President Trump’s account Friday after determining that his posts pose “the risk of further incitement of violence.”
The platform had previously handed the president a 12-hour suspension for posts made during Wednesday’s violent insurrection at the Capitol building.
“After close review of recent Tweets from the @realDonaldTrump account and the context around them — specifically how they are being received and interpreted on and off Twitter — we have permanently suspended the account,” the company wrote in a blog post.
Source: The Hill
With that said I do worry about the power the tech companies have and if they become the arbiter of what’s true and fake, it’ll just be another tool of the establishment. Yes it’s the slippery slope argument but any outside candidate that goes against the political norms could have trouble gaining traction online. Right now it makes me happy but what happens when it’s a candidate that I agree with?
The US Supreme Court has ruled that “categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising. ”
To me this seems pretty clear 🙂
Regards,
John Deacon, NY
Thanks John you’re right it is clear but my conservative friends are already talking about censorship ugh. It’s quite scary what’s going on in the US, I hope there’s no further violence and we get a strong US back again!
Thanks for the reply Colin! When you say “Conservatives” are you referring to your American friends? The point that people conveniently forget is that the 1st Amendment, as well as the rest of the Bill Of Rights, are NOT absolute guarantees. This has been proven over and over again by US Supreme Court case law.
Regards,
John Deacon, NY
Hi John.
Apologies, so a bit about myself I guess I don’t adhere to any particular ideology. I’m very liberal on a few things and libertarian on others, up here in Canada I’m very active politically and are a member of all 3 major parties so I can vote on leaders & policy. I have quite a few conservative leaning friends in Canada & the US mainly due to me enjoying shooting guns as a hobby and both groups regardless of country are up in arms over the banning of Trump on twitter & what I feel crying about conservative persecution. They fundamentally misunderstand the protections of the 1st amendment, there are limits to these rights and Twitter is not a government entity.
As an aside, I do have worry about giving tech companies so much power & generally I do not believe in banning anything but for Trump I’ll make an exception lol. He’s such a vindictive malicious POS so it makes me happy to realize he’s lost his favorite tool.
Thanks!