In Response to Oversight Board, Trump Suspended for Two Years

https://about.fb.com/news/2021/06/facebook-response-to-oversight-board-recommendations-trump/

by coloneltcb • 5 years ago

68 148 5 years ago

about.fb.com

azth• 5 years ago

Is anyone actually surprised? Serious question.

minimaxir• 5 years ago

The biggest surprise is that it's a temporary ban instead of a permanent one. (and a temporary ban that ends at a coincidentally convenient time should he run in 2024)

t0mbstone• 5 years ago

Yeah... That's very suspicious, not gonna lie.

toomuchtodo• 5 years ago

People are not immutable. It would set a bad precedent to make the ban permanent, versus revisiting and re-evaluating the decision in the future.

This person likely won’t change, but the process should still be reasonable depending on it’s expected lifecycle and the variety of folks who are going to be evaluated by it.

Qw3r7• 5 years ago

Im really not surprised at all. As the other individual mentioned, its convenient for 2024 purposes. And its the best thing for the GOP if they do let him run, so as he cannot do any more damage of what is left.

What a crazy world.

AnimalMuppet2• 5 years ago

That looks almost like "he can't drive traffic for us anymore, but in two years he might".

Traster• 5 years ago

Yes, I am actually surprised that Facebook decided that the response to Trump undermining the 2020 election was to ban him... until the run up to the 2024 election.

donohoe• 5 years ago

Yes - in that I worried they’d not do the right thing

readflaggedcomm2• 5 years ago

We will evaluate external factors, including [...] restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.

This was published today, when he is not in office. What restrictions could this refer to?

tamcap• 5 years ago

He got a "at least 2 years" ban, to be exact. The 2 years is the punishment for the post. Then, at the end of those 2 years, fb will evaluate the restrictions you quoted, and re-assess if further ban is necessary.

dominotw2• 5 years ago

re-assess if further ban is necessary.

What will be the new factors in 2 years that aren't present now.

Current ban is based on "violated Facebook’s Community Standards and Instagram’s Community Guidelines"

I don't see what they can possibly re-assess if he isn't on their platform in the first place.

They will monitor his behavior outside of their platform and deem him worthy or not?

readflaggedcomm2• 5 years ago

What power do they think he has to restrict anything/

neither_color• 5 years ago

We will evaluate external factors, including instances of violence, restrictions on peaceful assembly and other markers of civil unrest.

I don't have a dog in this fight, but I'm confused by this line. Whose restrictions on whose peaceful assembly?, and why is it worded so that restrictions on peaceful assembly is included in the list of "markers of civil unrest"? If I recall correctly restrictions on assembly started in response to disease outbreak, and later were sometimes applied to some left wing and some right wing protests. What if it's an unjust restriction on a righteous protest, or an unsafe lack of restriction on a "riot"? Is either situation a marker of civil unrest? Sorry my literal mind is having trouble parsing this.

kaczordon2• 5 years ago

Sigh, Glenn Greenwald is right, it’s only a matter of time before these censorship tools are used on people on the political left. Everyone cheers it now but they don’t seem to realize this will happen to them in the future once the other side controls these tools.

beowulfey2• 5 years ago

As the post points out, there is more to life than Facebook. Some people don’t even have accounts for the service, if you can believe it.

UncleOxidant• 5 years ago

<raises hand> Never had an FB account and don't want one.

amadeuspagel4• 5 years ago

Yeah, I don't have a facebook account either, yet I'm concerned about censorship on facebook, because facebook has enough users in my country to swing any election.

inglor_cz• 5 years ago

I deleted my Facebook in July 2019, but what another user says is important: Facebook has enough users to swing an election if they want to.

Displaying the message "Go vote!" to likely voters of X, while flooding the walls of likely voters of Y with ballast is going to do something. The question is if we want to tolerate this risk of targeted manipulation.

As far as the old capability vs. intent pair goes, it is pretty certain that FB has the necessary capability. As far as intent goes, that can change on a moment's notice.

It is also not just the USA we are speaking of. Facebook campaigns are huge in other democratic states. And they want to add their two cents to the conversation.

smoldesu14• 5 years ago

There's no censorship here. A large account broke their contract with a service provider, who is now choosing to suspend (not terminate) their account in response. Seems like a perfectly free and legal exchange to me.

trempisacent5• 5 years ago

It's still censorship.

The point here is the risk of our social communications being concentrated via a few large companies, who have ended up with an enormous amount of power to control speech online globally.

Caprinicus3• 5 years ago

Yes, a free and legal exchange that meets the definition of censorship. Many famous censorship schemes operate entirely in the private sphere. The Hays code, for instance, censored movies for decades and existed purely in contracts between movie distributors.

xdennis2• 5 years ago

Yes, those are exactly the words that will be used when leftists will be censored as well.

wyager• 5 years ago

“There’s no censorship here. It’s actually <insert long-winded definition of censorship.>”

Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it’s not censorship.

hash8725• 5 years ago

Why is having Terms Of Use 'censorship'? Like, Facebook isn't allowed to have rules on their own private property- which Trump voluntarily agreed to, in exchange for being allowed to use that property for free? Is a bar allowed to kick an obnoxious drunk out, or is that 'censorship' too?

I don't think that suspending private property rights is a particularly great idea for society. If we're suspending private property rights now, to copy your last sentence, everyone cheers but they don't seem to realize this will happen to their private property in the future once the other side controls these tools

trempisacent5• 5 years ago

The extent to which people and organisations should be permitted private property 'rights' always needs to be weighed up against the public good, and this is no exception.

Caprinicus3• 5 years ago

This is such an overly simplistic take. Depending on where you are in the country, you could easily suspend some combination of power, water, heat, road access, banking, or internet connectivity to individuals purely by restricting access to private property somewhere down the line. Simply accuse them of violating the terms of service. We collectively agree that is unacceptable, because those things are basic utilities.

We’ve let only a half dozen websites more or less completely control the internet on the front and backend - far fewer than the number of utilities it would take to turn off someone’s electricity. That kind of power is not just a free speech issue, it’s a national security threat and it’s only being celebrated because it’s being wielded, for now, against people we don’t like.

Imagine a future election where one candidate wants to classify social networks as utilities, and the other candidate wants to do nothing but set puppy orphanages on fire. Candidate 1 has her social media pages cancelled for nebulous violations to a labyrinthine TOS, and she loses the election - because that is how people are reached in the modern world.

JustSomeNobody3• 5 years ago

He still has a blog, so who cares about Facebook and what they do?

joshstrange• 5 years ago

He actually shut down the blog the other day (after less than 30 days of operation).

NationalPark• 5 years ago

The "political left" has been targeted for censorship and disruption by the FBI and other government agencies for decades. Forgive me if I interpret this as concern trolling, I think there are bigger social issues to tackle than the nebulous and catastrophic fear that Facebook being allowed to ban people will lead to ??? dystopia.

kaczordon2• 5 years ago

Right that doesn’t mean we should continue to censor and remove people from public discussion. My comment isn’t specific to Facebook, it’s directed at all the tech giants who usually “coincidentally” all ban the same person(like Alex Jones). This doesn’t lead to a good place and it’s odd to me that you would dismiss this so easily. Imagine AOC had been banned from FB and all social media platforms while she was running her first election, doubt she would have had the same result.

tshaddox4• 5 years ago

Is there any real evidence to support the claim that members or views from one "side" are subjected to this treatment more than members of the other side? I'm skeptical, because my impression is that people who identify with both sides seem equally convinced that their side is primarily the victim of this kind of treatment.

smoldesu14• 5 years ago

Everyone tries to victimize each other because everyone latently hates big companies and technology, and political censorship is a good way to incense people who otherwise lack the ability to rationalize their hatred for technology, and desperately need ammo to fire at big corporations.

In that sense, it's a very effective double-whammy that pretty much any social-media user has fallen victim to at some point. While Facebook and Twitter certainly aren't benevolent, I completely understand how their unpreparedness to deal with political figures would be misconstrued as censorship or suppression.

rvz4• 5 years ago

Everyone cheers it now but they don’t seem to realize this will happen to them in the future once the other side controls these tools.

Somehow on Facebook or Twitter, censoring another user is always spun as 'an accident' or 'a mistake in the algorithm' or even simply 'an error'. Usually the political left cheer on how cancelling someone everywhere works, thinking that it would never happen to them will later find out that these companies will soon won't be on their side, or any side.

Because they are always on the side of profit.

The chickens on the left are cheering on the wolves eating the other chickens who disagreed with them.

css2• 5 years ago

His accounts are back on Facebook properties, though. Previously they would display as a blank suspended page.

https://www.instagram.com/realDonaldTrump/

https://www.facebook.com/DonaldTrump

ckwalsh2• 5 years ago

They never left. When he was banned, the accounts were left visible, but the ability to post to them was indefinitely restricted.

css2• 5 years ago

I don't use Facebook, but his Instagram definitely showed a blank "this user has been suspended" page before.

vergessenmir2• 5 years ago

Facebook is a public company and can do whatever it feels right to do as long as its legal. The concentration of power here is worrying. The bias in their corrective action should worry us more, as should the possible extension of these type of actions to other groups.

EU leaders expressed concern over these policies because even they could see that this problematic intervention into the politics of a country is a line that need not be crossed. This extended ban isn't just FB, since other tech platform will likely fall in line.

It will be interesting to see if this will increase Trump's popularity when he does return to social platforms since his fanbase has been starved of his attention.

EDIT - since I'm being downvoted. The bias being referred to isn't strictly left/right leanings in America since FB is a global platform.

smoldesu14• 5 years ago

Facebook is a public company and can do whatever it feels right to do as long as its legal.

Agreed.

The concentration of power here is worrying.

Also agreed.

The bias in their corrective action should worry us more, as should the possible extension of these type of actions to other groups.

Aaaaaaaand this is where you lost me. What sort of bias are we seeing here? If anything, Facebook has finally made it's first responsible choice in decades and had a sit-down discussion about a user who broke the rules on their platform. Their corrective action was pretty light too: they're only suspending him, and not even for a duration that could potentially interfere with a (god forbid) 2024 campaign. Only objectionable material has been removed, and his accounts are still up and publicly available.

It will be interesting to see if this will increase Trump's popularity when he does return to social platforms since his fanbase has been starved of his attention.

Maybe, but the RNC is going to do everything in their power to stop it. You can expect the 2024 GOP lineup to start early and be furnished with crazy characters, because most of the RNC would rather endorse Kanye than give waste any more time with Trump in office.

vergessenmir2• 5 years ago

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe you thought I meant left/right bias, I was looking at this from the lens of Facebook being a global platform.

To expect an even response across all political parties across all governments by the metrics they gave around incitements to violence and danger to the public is a bit unrealistic.

Bias can easily be introduced in every phase of these cases being accessed. Arguably, long before the political and activist leanings are considered.

From that it's not to difficult to see it being extended to other groups.

frakkingcylons• 5 years ago

Trump doesn’t need a Facebook presence to be visible in American politics. Adjacent Facebook pages will still post about him and what he’s up to. News companies will still report on what he says (because it is newsworthy). He will still be a major topic of conversation on broadcast television and radio which still has a major audience.

trempisacent5• 5 years ago

I wonder which other world leaders and government entities will be suspended from Facebook, with the same reasoning.

For example, maybe Israel's leadership should be banned for their frequent propaganda there on why it's actually really great to kill Palestinian civilians because they're all secretly Hamas operatives, somehow.

Though, I expect Facebook singled Trump out as a special case. As awful as he was, there are world leaders out there saying and doing far worse. Perhaps it only counts if it's the USA?

xdennis2• 5 years ago

propaganda there on why it's actually really great to kill Palestinian civilians

Really? Show us.

user9822• 5 years ago

https://twitter.com/AliAbunimah/status/1396362010963726339

clucas• 5 years ago

I'm not on Facebook so I haven't seen what Netanyahu or other official Israeli government accounts post, but if what you posted is a fair summary of their statements, I think the key difference would be that Israel's leadership is (again, in your paraphrasing) justifying their own actions as legal, not calling on others to take illegal actions. Or are official Israeli Facebook accounts actually calling on their citizens to kill Palestinian civilians?

I would actually be curious to see other example of a country's leadership explicitly advocating on Facebook for citizens to take extra-legal actions. Perhaps Duterte's calls for killing drug dealers? But I'm not sure if that was actually on Facebook...

jraby3• 5 years ago

That’s a despicable comparison.

slumdev5• 5 years ago

Yes, Netanyahu is much worse.

dominotw2• 5 years ago

When the suspension is eventually lifted, there will be a strict set of rapidly escalating sanctions that will be triggered if Mr. Trump commits further violations in future

We have the same policy in our kids middle school.

nightski2• 5 years ago

FB is dying. Not the company, but the product. I can't remember the last time I logged in. My parents still do, but even they are getting tired of it. I'm sure this isn't universal across the globe, but at least in my little portion of the U.S. it doesn't feel like it used to.

nrp• 5 years ago

As a reminder to not over-index on your personal bubble when evaluating companies that operate globally, Facebook's most recent quarterly results:

* Facebook daily active users (DAUs) – DAUs were 1.88 billion on average for March 2021, an increase of 8% year-over-year.

* Facebook monthly active users (MAUs) – MAUs were 2.85 billion as of March 31, 2021, an increase of 10% year-over-year.

* Family daily active people (DAP) – DAP was 2.72 billion on average for March 2021, an increase of 15% year-over-year.

* Family monthly active people (MAP) – MAP was 3.45 billion as of March 31, 2021, an increase of 15% year-over-year.

tmountain• 5 years ago

This could also be to loosening bot policy though. As companies struggle to show growth, internal decisions are often made to allow for additional leniency regarding what counts as a "user".

nightski2• 5 years ago

Those numbers do not refute my statement. I'm assuming they are global and not for the U.S. Midwest? Also as I indicated just because a user logs in does not mean they enjoy the product.

Also - does a FB ad on a web page refresh your login and count you as a DAU?

rvz4• 5 years ago

“At the end of this period, we will look to experts to assess whether the risk to public safety has receded.”

Facebook should look at the mirror first before assessing the risk of another person or company.

In fact, they are the biggest risk to the entire world and public safety, given that the same disinformation campaigns are still running around its platform before, during and after Trump.

Animats• 5 years ago

At least they went through an elaborate oversight procedure to do it. It's not like the usual "We're cancelling your account and not telling you why", or, worse, PayPal's "we're cancelling your account and holding your money for six months".

jaywalk• 5 years ago

Oh, you mean the Oversight Board that was handpicked to tell Facebook that they are running things exactly the way they want to be running things?

HappySweeney• 5 years ago

Don't forget their other purpose as lightning-rod for any negativity FB receives as a result of their decisions.

gitpusher• 5 years ago

To be reinstated...

when conditions permit
if conditions allow

So. What exactly are these "conditions"?

splatcollision• 5 years ago

When the US government is really overthrown in a coup of course, because they're Facebook and they'll always hedge their bets, democracy be dammed...

JustSomeNobody3• 5 years ago

Two years... Just in time for a 2024 comeback. I mean, unless he's reinstated in August like he thinks. If things get bloody enough, maybe he's right.

Why does anyone care about him OR Facebook at this point?

AnimalMuppet2• 5 years ago

Nope. He's not getting reinstated in August, just like the results weren't overturned in January, and just like he wasn't inaugurated in March. Things may get bloody (I hope no bloodier than January 6, at worst, but we'll see.) But even if they get bloody, no, he's not getting reinstated in August. If anything happens, it will be Harris who becomes president.

rvz4• 5 years ago

Nope. He's not getting reinstated in August, just like the results weren't overturned in January, and just like he wasn't inaugurated in March.

Exactly. It seems the cry babies on the right have finally admitted defeat after throwing a massive tantrum and vandalising the Capitol.

On the other hand, I also do remember the cry babies on the left threw a massive tantrum on the streets and vandalised many businesses when the results of the 2016 election were contested for years when Trump won and even after.

If anything happens, it will be Harris who becomes president.

Yeah, And this time the Democrats, Big Tech and the media WILL definitely do everything they can to make sure that happens.

drc37• 5 years ago

Things like this make me more and more want to remove the Section 230 clause shielding companies from lawsuits.

"Section 230 has enabled platforms to absolve themselves completely of responsibility for policing their platforms, while blocking or removing third-party speech — including political speech — selectively, and with impunity."

marksomnian• 5 years ago

Out of interest, have you read https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...?

Hamuko2• 5 years ago

Explain to me how repealing Section 230 fixes this.

spike0212• 5 years ago

Even with Twitter banning him, people tweet/post about Trump all the time, especially his "frustration" with his blog.

It's almost like he never left.

You'd think with people wanting to silence him they wouldn't continue giving him a platform by sharing about his problems.

Hamuko2• 5 years ago

people tweet/post about Trump all the time

They banned his Twitter account, not remove him from existence. What did you expect?

And there's definitely a lot less drama now with Trump having such a large megaphone. I doubt his blog had anywhere near the reach of his Twitter account.

spike0212• 5 years ago

While I agree, the point was to take away his platform. I don't believe that part of it was successful.

void_mint3• 5 years ago

HN users continuing to conflate "Private company doing private company things" with "rights" and "censorship".

Private companies have always banned/blocked problematic users. That's not censorship.

myfavoritedog• 5 years ago

The issues are conflated because the existing legal framework never accounted for what we have today. It's confusing; and unteasing the concerns to find the primary core principles that should be supported isn't easy.

The existing CDA protections that are relied upon by social media giants was originally intended to allow content hosting platforms to manage issues that most everyone agreed upon, like "Content hoster should be allowed to remove explicit porn from their public interest bulletin board"

They never realized that social media giants would one day use their content moderation to bend large-scale public opinion to their will on day-to-day political and public health issues.

In addition to the overreach of the CDA safe harbor provision are issues of public accommodation, monopoly control of free speech, and in-kind political donations to candidates and parties that bypass existing election finance restrictions.

jlkuester72• 5 years ago

Agreed. This is not a "free speech" problem that is covered by the First Amendment or anything like that.

That being said, I think it is fair to raise some questions when inyalowda decide to enforce their policies in a seemly arbitrary fashion. Trump is toxic and his presence on social media did nothing to raise the intellectual bar of public discourse. But, he is far from the only world leader to share self-serving, destrucive, and misleading propaganda online. Users should demand clear policies and fair universal enforcement from FB.

ENOTTY3• 5 years ago

I'm pretty onboard, but uneasy, with the framing that private entities should have broad discretion to decide how to govern the use of their spaces.

But Facebook (and Google, Apple, and many other "platforms") are such an indispensable part of our lives that we should have difficult conversations about what individual rights look like in these quasi-public private spaces. (It's worth noting that the explicit business model of many of these companies is to create gigantic platforms/walled gardens.)

I personally do not believe that many of the norms and common law relating to physical public/private spaces should be transferred to the modern age of digital oligopoly.

hash8725• 5 years ago

Respectfully, I just can't understand what the exact argument is here. Are you and others saying that- because Facebook is huge & used by many Americans, it can't have rules of behavior on the site? 'Facebook is very popular, thus it's not allowed to moderate content'- try saying it out loud to yourself. Is that what you're saying? Asking in a non-snarky/good faith way- like what is the actual argument?

If you accept that Facebook, like every platform in Internet history has content moderation rules- then Trump violated them, hence his suspension. Here's my logic chain, I'm open to a critique:

1. Facebook has content moderation rules 2. Trump violated them by inciting a riot or insurrection 3. The penalty for said violation is a suspension

Where is the problem in the chain? That Facebook isn't allowed to moderate content, that inciting a riot isn't punishment-worthy (??), that the punishment is too harsh.... Where is the exact issue?

void_mint3• 5 years ago

But Facebook (and Google, Apple, and many other "platforms") are such an indispensable part of our lives that we should have difficult conversations about what individual rights look like in these quasi-public private spaces. (It's worth noting that the explicit business model of many of these companies is to create gigantic platforms/walled gardens.)

I don't agree, I think the opposite. The government should be working to make them more dispensable. Every company you listed needs aggressive antitrust action from various worldwide governments.

wdr1• 5 years ago

It's not your definition of censorship.

There are many definitions of censorship. Government censorship is not the only valid version. To wit, Wikipedia even states "Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies"

EqScr9a3• 5 years ago

I would say that it's not about whether the actor is a government or not but about whether the action is coercive or not. If a private individual personally threatens to physically harm someone for their speech, she is engaging in censorship just as much as if she was a legislator passing a bill to that same effect. If a government school refuse to teach a certain fact, it's not engaging in censorship any more than a private individual who refuse to teach the same fact.

Not communicating a piece of information and not helping others in communicating a piece of information is not censorship. Censorship is preventing others from communicating a piece of information by force. Facebook is not doing that, they have just decided not to help communicate some information. Another example would be that you would not be censoring me if you removed a political bumper sticker I placed on your car, even if you leave other bumper stickers placed there by other people in place.

the_third_wave5• 5 years ago

That is why these companies should be treated as just that, private companies.

This means that section 230 of the CDA needs to be repealed and that they become liable for what their users submit. They will probably react by censoring even more, making their services even less palatable to more and more people. With a bit of luck that will give the decentralised 'net the push it needs to take the lead.

jjeaff3• 5 years ago

Getting rid of that protection would also get rid of the protection that ISPs have, which allows them to serve up internet service without having to moderate everything. Same for hosting companies and for forums like hn.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...

gnicholas2• 5 years ago

Why on earth is this not on the front page? It was posted 1 hour ago and has 50 points and 96 comments.

If it's being flagged, that's an exercise in futility. The end result is that people don't see it on the front page and keep posting it. Then someone goes into all of those posts and points people to this discussion, which is keeping this discussion alive.

But it would be much more efficient if the @dang could just unflag this so the conversation could happen here directly.

EDIT: hey flaggers, thanks for the downvotes. Do you have a better suggestion for how to handle this, or do you just think that discussing a major move by one of the largest tech companies on the planet shouldn't happen on HN?

detaro• 5 years ago

has 50 points and 96 comments

far less points than comments is penalized by the ranking algorithm

jjgreen• 5 years ago

Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

gnicholas2• 5 years ago

I'm aware of the guidelines, thanks. I've been here a while and don't comment on voting often. You'll notice others have commented on this also, which indicates that something strange is happening.

rvz4• 5 years ago

I didn't flag, but it seems that if the orange man's name is mentioned or written on this orange site then it is immediately flagged / downvoted without question. [0]

Don't bother asking for a reason or suggestions (They don't have any) I also tried that and they downvoted me to the bottom of the comments section, like this one. Most of them are devoid of reason or having a discussion about Facebook's actions since some of them even work for the tech giant themselves.

So in their case, the only 'sensible' action for them to do is to censor, silence or generate a robotic reply to your response. It's natural for them to reject anyone asking too many good questions.

[0] Unless if the source is from slatestarcodex. HN loves them.

EDIT:

Downvoters and Flaggers: Are you going to answer the parent's question or are you proving us both correct with the above claims?

motohagiography• 5 years ago

I'm not sure the popular objection to this would be that FB is doing it, it is that they say they are doing it based on some kind of objective or at least shared principle and facts, with some kind of negotiable condition, and I think that is what many people would consider outrageous.

FB should just say, "we're against him and we're exercising our own discretion and prerogative." The bureaucratic worldivew expressed in press releases like this are what created the populist movement that supported him in the first place. Who cares what oversight process this went through if it is just internal bureaucratic theatre to insulate the individual decision makers, and with no national legitimacy?

FB is pretending it doesn't have responsibility for the power it is exercising. Zuckerberg & Co. should just say, "L'internet, c'est moi" and be done with it and try not to contemptibly hide behind words nobody believes. This relentless miasma of bullshit is what people see as totalitarianism, not their coastal opinions.

jlkuester72• 5 years ago

It seems like true freedom in digital social discourse is really only attainable via a decentralized system. (Note that I mean "freedom" not only to speak your mind, but also the freedom to not have to listen to someone else speak their mind if you don't want to.) There are plenty of unmoderated cesspools on the internet. There are also plenty of walled-garden centralised social media platforms that enforce their own interpretation of "appropriate" speech. A better solution is one that allows individuals to communicate on a decentralized network by joining a server of their choice (or hosting their own). Then those users/servers can control who they choose to federate with and who they choose to block. Subsidiarity in moderation will yeald the best outcome.

This is my I am a big fan of Mastodon! https://joinmastodon.org/

jfengel2• 5 years ago

And it's there. You have it. The ex-President can have it any time he wants, just like his blog. Problem solved.

the_third_wave5• 5 years ago

...until someone upstream from his server decides his content is no longer welcome on the 'net and pulls the server from the rack / drops his network service / drops his name service / refuses to process payment requests / cancels his domain registration / refuses to process mail from his domain / etcetera.

Think of how Parler was treated to get an idea of what I mean. Think of that scene in The Matrix where Neo was rhetorically questioned by agent Smith - "What good is a phone call if you are unable to speak?".

What good is a platform if you are unable to connect it to the internet?

petee• 5 years ago

"We're concerned he will encourage violence again, so we banned him" "...But we'll let him try again in 2 years when campaign season starts"

So, vague consistency, and no foresight. What could go wrong

RickJWagner• 5 years ago

So long as they give similar bans to anyone praising a violent crowd action / riot / civil unrest, then I'm ok with it.

slumdev5• 5 years ago

Don Lemon, Chris Cuomo, and every other stooge who provided rhetorical cover for the BLM riots last year are still enjoying their Facebook accounts, so it doesn't look like the policy is getting applied evenly as you suggest it ought.

In Response to Oversight Board, Trump Suspended for Two Years

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