Jack Dorsey says he agrees with reversing Trump's Twitter ban

They can, but the question is whether that's what happened. I think Dorsey was always on the side of free speech in principle. Twitter used to market itself as "the free speech wing of the free speech party". [1]

He probably wasn't in a strong enough position to be able to resist the pressure to silence Trump.

[1] https://amp.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/22/twitter-tony-w...

xdennis4• 4 years ago

Especially when the facts turn out to be faked. Only one person died at the riot: a woman protestor who was shot by an African American cop. Only later, one person later died from overdosing on drugs and 3 died of natural causes. If we wait 100 years the casualty list will grow to 100%.

teekert2• 4 years ago

Changing your mind on complex issues like this is normal I'd say.

Eddy_Viscosity22• 4 years ago

Trump said he wouldn't go ever go back to Twitter. So this is a moot point because Trump is always honest and true to his word. /s

dhuk_2018• 4 years ago

Wonder if they're trying to bait him away from Truth Social (his failing competitor platform)

Eddy_Viscosity22• 4 years ago

No bait is needed, Trump just needs the right excuse to backpedal and not lose face.

swores• 4 years ago

I'd be surprised if they were remotely worried about that, seems much more likely they either believe it to be the right thing to do on principle (as claimed) - of course, whether it's the free speech principle they claim, or a pro-Trump principle, is another question - or believe that the views/engagements they get from having him on Twitter outweigh the negatives.

lalos5• 4 years ago

It is interesting how much influence Peter Thiel has on the main players of social media: via Facebook as an early investor and ex-board member and via Twitter with his ex-coworker from Paypal days Musk. He’s very explicit in his book about the power of monopolies and now you see this consolidation of social media companies under a specific group of closed people. WSJ reported Thiel being involved with Musk on this twitter deal, that plus his recent political investments in certain figures, did he figure out that they are not getting the same bang for buck with this ban in play? Dorsey has a financial interest of this deal going through, last I heard was at least 1 billion. So he’ll start saying yes to whatever pops up to let this go through and even more incentive with the recent downturn of tech stocks that are not profitable.

natly2• 4 years ago

I doubt Thiel is some kind of central master mind behind all this. Musk seems quite independently driven and probably found this a necessary move with only minor chats with thiel (if any). I'm not sure Thiel has any more or less influence than Sam Altman or Paul Graham.

lalos5• 4 years ago

If someone makes you rich and successful with their business advice and you work with them for multiple years, would you ignore their phone call in the future and ignore their other suggestions? It’s not about being a master mind, there is soft power in play, humans are social animals.

belter4• 4 years ago

"Elon Musk Reacts To WSJ Report That 'Shadow Crew' Of Billionaires Including Peter Thiel Pushed Him To Buy Twitter"

https://www.benzinga.com/news/22/05/26922872/elon-musk-wants...

"A source who spoke to both men said that Musk thinks Thiel is "a sociopath," and Thiel considers Musk "a fraud.""

https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-elon-musk-relati...

jason-phillips• 4 years ago

A rather cynical take, liberally sprinkled with straw men and conjecture, served fait accompli.

wutbrodo2• 4 years ago

You don't need any conspiracies theories to explain why Dorsey is a supporter of free speech.

Dorsey has always been part of the crop of Enlightenment-liberal tech CEOs, which includes Larry, Sergey, and Zuckerberg. It got memory-holed pretty quickly, but these guys were dragged kicking and screaming into the new illiberal consensus that it was their job to decide what users are allowed to talk about. At a certain point, they bowed to the emerging illiberal consensus, for fear of both political and employee-revolt consequences. It is business, after all.

(I was at Google for the first half of the last decade, and it was eerie to see the employee culture slowly get colonized by the culty illiberal-left perspective)

Culture is weird, and can shift dramatically between equilibria. Now that the conversation has shifted, a lot of these figures feel like they have cover to start expressing their beliefs again without those who disagree being able to gin up any financial consequences.

tomlin4• 4 years ago

This take should be framed and pinned to the top. Of all the hinged/unhinged comments, this one tries hard to be principled in fact. It's getting tiring hearing about how this heir to an emerald mine was going to enslave us all.

lalos5• 4 years ago

Just as Dorsey was influenced by that abstract force you mention as 'illiberal consensus' because of fear of different factors (political, employee/stakeholders, financial consequences). Dorsey is now influenced by the likely new owner of Twitter because of fear of different factors (stakeholders, financial consequences), he wants the deal to go through he will not go on the record and contradict the person he is selling to. It was beneficial to be for the ban before, and now it is beneficial to be against it. Dorsey was the CEO. It is business, after all. Sounds like your argument (or conspiracy theories) and mine aren't that different.

Just to be explicit for all the rabid fans, I'm not against Thiel, Musk, Zuckerberg or any other tech CEO. On the contrary, they have so much impact and are involved in multiple projects in so little time. I'm not proposing any conspiracy of them wanting to control us or whatever straw-man argument others are injecting on my comment. It's interesting to see this deal unfold from a business perspective with all the different stakeholders involved, and the flip-flopping of Dorsey's decisions.

fsloth• 4 years ago

Before this turns into a culture-war-fest consider this: if Twitter is to be a global platform, it probably should NOT take political sides and if it is to censor anyone permanently, it should mostly adhere to local courts and similar entities. It's not about Trump or United States. It's about everyone else.

World is a really messy place. It's not very easy generally to decided if in a political conflict one or other party has moral high ground. For instance we have several Nobel peace price winners now participating in plausible genocide (Aung Sang Suu Kyi and Abiy Ahmed). Who has the moral high ground? I have no frigging idea, but I don't think an unelected corporation should decide either.

If Twitter takes the side Trump is a crook and should be perma-banned, this creates a precedent for silencing the voices of opposition voices around the globe.

Edit: I mean in the context if Twitter is designed to be a fair medium for anyone to express themselves. Of course it does not have to be like that and can block anyone without infringing anyones rights as such.

lkxijlewlf3• 4 years ago

Twitter should enforce their ToS no matter who breaks them.

dahfizz2• 4 years ago

Should twitter maintain all it's old bans if it changes it's ToS, which Musk wants to do?

choko• 4 years ago

Their TOS and policies are vague enough to allow selective enforcement, which is a complaint that I've seen many times. Fewer people would take issue with Twitter (and all social media) if they were more transparent.

ModernMech3• 4 years ago

But this puts Twitter in the business of fomenting insurrection against the country it operates in. Trump was banned not for expressing morally ambiguous political positions, but because he fomented a mob to attack the Capitol and he used Twitter specifically during that insurrection to cause the mob to focus its attack on the Vice President. He was watching the events in real time on TV, and he was using Twitter to stoke the flames. Why should Twitter allow its platform to be used that way?

What is Twitter supposed to do, ban Trump for a week every time he uses their platform to advocate for violence? Does that mean we can all advocate for violence on Twitter? I mean, have they really thought this through?

MrMan• 4 years ago

I think there are quite a few parties who would like to use twitter as a weapon of genocide / sedition / insurrection.

whitepaint5• 4 years ago

How come this is not a widely held opinion? This view should be a norm. Do not ban a president of a country on social media. Period. When a private company decides to do so, it should be profusely condemned by everyone. Should Putin's twitter be banned as well?

LightG3• 4 years ago

Yes.

I still view Twitter (back when I was on it) as a private business. Like a pub. Chat rubbish, cause trouble, get thrown out.

At the time of the elections, do you remember all the memes about how Twitter was just a tiny portion of voters and that the vast majority were not even on Twitter?

Twitter is not a town square or a centre of free speech. It's a small dive bar in the corner of the city.

Cause trouble, get ditched in the gutter.

andrewzah• 4 years ago

Politicians don't have the right to be on a private website. They already have official channels to communicate.

Twitter has every right to ban Putin, or Trump, or Duterte, etc.

devmor• 4 years ago

What nonsense.

Donald Trump violated the twitter ToS on the daily, as well as local law. I'd be permanently banned from Twitter if I did what he did.

_-david-_4• 4 years ago

Plenty of people are not banned for breaking the rules. People literally calling for the death of people are on Twitter and their tweets still up. You may have been banned, but there is no guarantee.

michaelbrave• 4 years ago

Trump wasn't banned for being a crook but for inciting violence and repeatedly breaking the terms of service. He got away with far more instances of breaking the ToS than any normal person would.

I know there is a fine line between things like Freedom Fighters/Extremists/Terrorists depending on how it's viewed and who is viewing it. Similarly inciting violence could be muddled away with enough rhetoric or only selectively enforce, as governments often do.

Likely the best solution is to update the laws around social media use or extend the previous laws to include those instances and then apply it equally to all.

All of that said though, Trump very much repeatedly broke the ToS and rightfully deserved to banned before he became president.

ricardoplouis2• 4 years ago

Is there just a different set of free speech rules for the rich and powerful? If I incited violence on the platform, I doubt Elon or Dorsey would be letting me come back after a ban.

lkxijlewlf3• 4 years ago

Yes. The rich have a different set of rules everywhere.

haunter• 4 years ago

Yes, different rules and privileges.

einpoklum• 4 years ago

Is there just a different set of free speech rules for the rich and powerful?

Of course there is. Twitter's owner appoint managers who hire people to oversee censorship on the platform. These choices themselves are already biased towards the owners' interests and points of view. If you add to this ability of rich and powerful people/organizations to harass or influence Twitter, the bias is even stronger.

Having said that - the tweet Trump was suspended for:

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

does not seem like an incitement of violence.

hbosch• 4 years ago

If the president is publicly instigating toward North Korea on your platform, arguably you have the responsibility to allow people to witness what's being said. In the same way, CNN arguably has the responsibility to broadcast it if he was recorded by their cameras.

It's probably not in the public interest to broadcast every person's incitations of violence or bigotry, but the president? Yes. Certainly you're not implying you should be treated exactly the same as the president of the United States...

ricardoplouis2• 4 years ago

The public's interest is a weak argument. I can say it's not in the public's interest to have someone who lost the popular vote in office at all, but that is only my opinion and doesn't speak to the original point.

I'm implying that the spirit of free speech should apply equally to all. If the president can come back after inciting violence, then everyone else should as well. It's not a selective principle that you get to choose how you follow.

If you don't want violent rhetoric to spread then yes, limiting free speech and universally applying those rules is a viable path to achieve that.

Otherwise, you create a regulatory environment that only applies to you if you don't have the power, political capital, or fanbase to yell loud enough in your favor.

dhzhzjsbevs3• 4 years ago

When did trump incite violence? That sounds like a crime. Why wasn't he charged? Maybe you're confused?

Anyhoo, what's that got to do with twitter? Since when did they become the police?

netsec_burn2• 4 years ago

The crime was inciting an insurrection. The president was not charged due to partisan politics, no president has ever actually been voted out by the Senate of their own party (correct me if I'm wrong), but historically this has been the most votes received from their party. It's recommended to understand both the background and the event on January 6th to get a clear picture, including attempts to overturn the election. More details here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_of_Donald...

Twitter is responsible for moderating the users their platform, regardless of whether they are free speech purists. You cannot let your users plot crimes. That's why sites like Silk Road and AlphaBay were shut down.

FireBeyond• 4 years ago

There are literally dozens of incidents, on video, of Trump inciting violence, on a small and large scale.

From telling a crowd that they should beat up a heckler and he'd pay their legal bills (lol), to saying "maybe some of you second amendment types can do something about Hillary", and beyond.

There's no confusion.

throw0101a• 4 years ago

When did trump incite violence? That sounds like a crime. Why wasn't he charged? Maybe you're confused?

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_impeachment_trial_of_Do...

banannaise• 4 years ago

The great irony is that you can't really do much to incite violence, no matter how hard you try; the rich and powerful, with their large platforms and massive followings, can do it with very little effort.

xdennis4• 4 years ago

Is there just a different set of free speech rules for the rich and powerful?

Yes, just like there's one for left wing vs right wing. Trump was banned for violence for saying he won't attend the inauguration. Yet tweets calling for violence against the right are allowed. Many of them are years old.

You can search for yourself. Example:

* https://twitter.com/bobmorr32749439/status/15240565867375042... : "kill putin and trump and all the Republicans"

* https://twitter.com/gnarlyymarleyy/status/131111964852019609... : "can someone just assassinate trump so we can be done w this PLEASE"

s1artibartfast2• 4 years ago

If anything, the stand for speech went the opposite direction in this case.

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Compare this "incitement to violence" against public posts calling for assassination of trump which were neither removed or resulted in bans.

originalvichy• 4 years ago

It's not surprising that someone who sounds like a sort of free speech absolutist agrees that permanent bans are bad for the idea of free and accessible speech.

The problem I have with some free speech purists is that they give me a feeling that they are persons who are more often than not unaffected by speech that can be categorised as inciting hatred towards a people, and thus they see little to no problem with being able to spread harmful bad faith speech freely on an algorithmic social media site - or any place for that matter.

It's a tricky thing for which there are no real correct answers. What I do know is that socially and politically we have several unwritten rules about what, where and how to speak about things because not abiding by those rules results in things as minor as slight embarrassment to as severe as physical violence. That is to say, things can spiral out of hand and the usefulness of speech deteriorates if some standards are not kept.

Twitter shouldn't be the judge of what an American president can say, because the American people should have already filtered out a person of such low integrity from gaining a position in such a high public office. All this time I've felt amused by how much our American friends can talk about what should or shouldn't Twitter do, but seemingly never discuss how they can as a society make sure that the executive office doesn't get filled by someone who brought their entire democratic process to disrepute.

To conclude, I think if you aren't scared of what another Trump can do to your country or its societal fabric or your personal freedoms then I see no reason why a Dorsey doesn't think Trump should be allowed to come back. The women of his country already saw what one term of Trump did to the rights they thought they had. Not all political turmoil is scary for those who are safe from politics.

chmod6007• 4 years ago

"The problem I have with some free speech purists is that they give me a feeling that they are persons who are more often than not unaffected by speech"

There's a mirror image problem though: people in favor of regulations on speech have little reason to fear that their speech will be limited, at least in the short term. Regulators are politically-correct, so if you are politically-correct, what's the problem? (Obviously: bad things can become politically-correct, too.)

dnissley• 4 years ago

The example I always use here as someone who grew up in the 90s is that having an openly gay character on network tv used to be extremely controversial at best and politically untenable at worst.

nonameiguess• 4 years ago

Short-term isn't really that short. Witness all the tales of teachers not being able to admit to being gay in the 90s without risking getting fired, or don't ask, don't tell, which was only repealed roughly a decade ago. These speech restrictions were all being pushed by the American GOP, which is now reversing course less than a few years later as they find the cultural tides shifting away from moral majority, satanic panic type stuff that saw them banning 2 Live Crew and Judas Priest albums toward political correctness and now it's their speech being restricted. There is no good reason to think this is some permanent state of affairs and the tides won't shift back the other way again, or that it will take centuries or something. If history is any guide, it'll happen before current college students even hit middle age.

chmod6007• 4 years ago

"The women of his country already saw what one term of Trump did to the rights they thought they had."

I see very little connection between anything that might be deemed "unacceptable" speech by Trump and the imminent overturn of Roe. Other than the fact that he got elected.

mywittyname• 4 years ago

His entire platform was "say shit to piss people off." It's what got him elected, and what allowed him to pack SCOTUS. That's not even hyperbole, their campaign tried very hard to replicate this success in 2020.

pohl2• 4 years ago

That's kind of how it works, though, innit: wannabe autocrat demagogue gets a bullhorn, uses it to leverage power via populist rhetoric, then shoves activist justices onto the bench — who, surprise, do their activist thing...

That's the "very little connection" you're missing.

oceanplexian• 4 years ago

Trump was a fairly average right-wing politician. Another Bush, or McCain, or Romney would have nominated the same Supreme Court Justices and had more or less identical policy.

The few times Trump went against the grain he was overruled in the House and Senate, and ultimately he peacefully transferred power to the next president despite the rioting after he lost the election. So the implicit argument that he was some kind of danger to democracy or radical force that tore up the fabric of society seems like nothing more than partisanship. At the least his actions didn't seem like a huge departure from any other politician. I remember in 2016 the exact opposite people were claiming the election was rigged and the results needed to be overturned.

cableshaft• 4 years ago

I remember in 2016 the exact opposite people were claiming the election was rigged and the results needed to be overturned.

One difference is Hillary Clinton officially conceded the morning after the election in 2016, meanwhile Trump to this day, a year and a half later, still insists he still won the 2020 election and that it was rigged.

Those people you're referring to in 2016 also didn't storm the Capitol trying to overturn the election results by physical force.

Despite this, I don't think it was the best decision to give Trump a permanent ban on Twitter, and it's probably time to let him back on. Politics is full of people saying really stupid things and denying reality, why single him out.

It only bled other people off the platform and made them seek other platforms, further dividing and segregating people into their echo chambers even more.

qsdf38100• 4 years ago

So you’re saying this wanna be dictator failed with his coup attempt, so ultimately he had to "peacefully" transfer power. So there was no danger and we should move along, nothing to see here, just partisanship.

Do I need to explain what’s wrong with your reasoning?

metadat• 4 years ago

Too many double negatives, I don't get your message.

Maursault4• 4 years ago

What you and responders have missed is the 1st Amendment is totally and entirely inapplicable to Twitter. There is a misunderstanding here of the Amendment. It only applies to federal, state, and local government actors. This is a broad category that includes not only lawmakers and elected officials, but also public schools and universities, courts, and police officers. It does not include private citizens, businesses, and organizations. Censorship by the government is unconstitutional. No other entity or group is bound by the 1st Amendment. And this is by the Founders' design, because extending the 1st Amendment to all entities and groups would in fact limit freedom.

BellLabradors• 4 years ago

Do you think the Hollywood blacklist was wrong?

somenameforme2• 4 years ago

Belief in free speech is an ideology. The US Constitution's first amendment is a restriction against the US government in passing laws restricting speech. The two are not the same thing.

dahfizz2• 4 years ago

Free speech is much larger than just the first amendment (if you can believe it, some people actually live outside the USA).

It is perfectly consistent to believe in free speech, support the first amendment, and also want platforms like Twitter to allow for the free speech of it's users.

bsder• 4 years ago

Dorsey is magically a "Free Speech" advocate now that it doesn't affect his checkbook. Erm, yeah. (See: Twitter in China for prior reference)

I'll file his newfound respect for rights over here next to all the Trump cronies who seem to magically find respect for rights between the time they resign and their next book deal.

ddingus3• 4 years ago

Those people know how to manage their response to speech they do not like. Should we free people of that burden, the range of permissible speech will be a small subset of speech overall.

The outcome of that is few people being able to have real conversations. Contrived, Disneyland type discourse would then be the norm.

Frankly, that would inhibit understanding one another and further limit speech.

At some point, people must weigh incoming speech and manage what they do with it or there simply will not be all that much left to be said.

ddingus3• 4 years ago

By the way, why does no one think to ask why we got Trump?

I suggest doing that is less painful than limiting speech overall will be.

The risk of another Trump, or Trump again is serious! I fear it.

But I also question why he ran with, and a future "Trump type" would potentially run against, candidates lackluster enough to make the risk real.

RickJWagner• 4 years ago

Women haven't lost any rights that I can think of. The US has extremely liberal abortion laws [1]. Even many liberal legal analysts believe Roe is past due to be overturned-- the US constitution says nothing about rights to terminate a pregnancy.

If anything, unborn babies may have gained the right to life.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_law

mariusor• 4 years ago

if you aren't scared of what another Trump can do to your country or its societal fabric or your personal freedoms [..]

I think instead of being scared of what allowing unethical speech can bring and trying to censor it, we should work towards ensuring that there is equal and opposing points of view, hopefully with better reasoned arguments. As far as I can tell the problem is that the people which are able to put those points of view "on paper" rarely bother to do so, because arguing against someone like Trump never encounters a good faith debate, and most of the times, it's so obvious that it's so wrong. But of course that it's not obviously wrong for a vast number of people, and explicitly stating it, might help them.

Expanding on this discussion see the exchange between Peter Boghossian and Laurie Penny in one of the classics of letter.wiki: https://letter.wiki/conversation/863

phphphphp2• 4 years ago

Jack is showing that he’s unprincipled. He doesn’t shape his decisions around principles, he shapes his ostensible “principles” around his decisions.

The question they (Jack, but also Elon) ask themselves is not “what’s the principled decision to make?” but “What’s best for me in this moment?” and in the moment Trump was banned, banning Trump was the best decision for Jack. And now the best decision for Jack is not to ban trump…

A person without principles is a bad leader.

nh23423fefe• 4 years ago

Imagining there exist platonic principles to be adhered to is fundamentalism, not virtue.

Principles are compressed representations pointing to virtue, not things in an of themselves to be reified and held.

phphphphp2• 4 years ago

Principles are not absolutes, principles can evolve. Principles are not mandatory, people can operate without principles.

I am arguing that Jack (and Elon) profess to be principled people (in this case, free speech) yet Jack is clearly demonstrating a radical shift in perspective without an accompanying radical shift in principles, which must only be the sign of someone who doesn’t follow principles.

How can Jack hold the same principled view today that he held 2 years ago but disavow the choices he made 2 years ago? If you compress radically different virtues you don’t get the same principles.

causi3• 4 years ago

I don't agree with government regulation of what should or should not be in a site's code of conduct. Requiring codes of conduct to be enforced equally on all users, however, merits some thought.

sascha_sl3• 4 years ago

But then the entire business model becomes even less viable than it already is. Twitter and other social media have to rely on outsourced overworked and underpaid reviewers who will never have the time or training understand context (regularly receiving veiled threats[1] and not having anyone act on them made me quit twitter) and make thousands of decisions per hour. It doesn't scale any other way.

[1] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=join%20the%2...

causi3• 4 years ago

How does that relate to having a small subset of users to whom the rules don't apply?

Gigachad2• 4 years ago

I think the other side of the argument has value though. If Twitter is large enough that it has such huge social impact rivalling that of governments, why should a single ceo or board be able to make these decisions.

We shouldn’t be expecting or perhaps even allowing twitter to make these calls at this scale. Twitter is beyond just a private company offering a product. It’s now a serious utility.

sc902• 4 years ago

Should there be a Penal/Criminal Code for Social Media violations rather than indefinite bans? Edit: By the respective tech companies not something enforced by any branch of government.

a3w2• 4 years ago

In germany, there is. What the courts will make of those laws is still TBD.

Regimes do copy these laws to put anti state opinions behind bars, though.

It's hard to find a middle ground, mostly depending on culture and acceptable offenses by both believers in a message and feelings of people hurt by offensive proposals or hateful speech.

sc902• 4 years ago

Not government/court enforced but by the respective companies.

a3w2• 4 years ago

So I guess Hitler would not have been banned from Twitter under Elon Musks rule? Because inciting violence is free speech as long as someone else does the bad deeds.

NDizzle3• 4 years ago

Take a look at the two tweets that twitter used to justify the perma ban of Trump. It's weak, at absolute best.

https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/suspensio...

On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump Tweeted:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

Shortly thereafter, the President Tweeted:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Those two tweets are perma-ban worthy? I'm glad nobody has paid attention to what I typed into region chat in MMOs for the past 20 years...

jwond• 4 years ago

Wow, I didn’t realize those were the tweets he was banned for. That blog post includes some pretty twisted mental gymnastics to try and explain how those tweets justify their decision.

NDizzle3• 4 years ago

Correct. I'm glad I reached at least one person before I am downvoted to flagged for pasting twitter's own reasoning. Again.

ModernMech3• 4 years ago

You're leaving out the fact that those tweets were sent two days after an insurrection in which Trump used Twitter to target the Vice President with a mob. In the days thereafter, Trump was being urged to cool things down because tensions were still red hot. Instead, he refused to back off the very narrative that got people fired up enough to literally assault our democratic process. There was a legitimate worry that he was still using Twitter to signal to his supporters (who again, had just sacked the capitol) that they should attack the inauguration of Joe Biden next. That was the real and legitimate concern at the time.

How many insurrections are you willing to let Trump coordinate on your platform? Two? More?

NDizzle3• 4 years ago

Insurrection? The most armed civilian segment in the entire world, that didn't bring their guns to this fantastic insurrection event?! The same group who was let into various private chambers, for maximum effect, sometimes walking so close to single file that it would bring a tear to a second grade teachers eye...

If that's your definition of insurrection, there can be infinity more of them on my platform.

cityofdelusion2• 4 years ago

That blog post looks pretty bad here in 2022. The rationale to justify the suspension is vague enough that anyone could be suspended for just about any reason. There is a lot of weasel phrasing in it ("...may also serve as encouragement" [according to who?], "...is being received by a number of his supporters" [who?], "...also being interpreted" [again, by who?], "...is being interpreted..." [by who?]).

It reminds me of forums I was on in the early 2000s; moderators would ban unsavory folks. How that actually happens is not "a rule is broken leads to a ban", but rather, rules are combed through when a ban is desired.

lp0_on_fire• 4 years ago

How that actually happens is not "a rule is broken leads to a ban", but rather, rules are combed through when a ban is desired.

I had the experience of moderating one of the larger political forums on reddit and in my experience this still happens. There were some mods who clearly had ideological axes to grind despite their insistence of impartiality.

stillbourne• 4 years ago

I think moderation is at the discretion of the content provider. I endorse banning Trump and I also endorse unbanning Trump. That's how the first amendment works.

ajsnigrutin• 4 years ago

First thing when i open the webpage, is them asking me for my email address

Seriously, web developers, stop it!

tomlin4• 4 years ago

You mean marketers. Marketers have become developer's bosses in a lot of agencies.

vlunkr• 4 years ago

Seems like they're making slightly different arguments. Dorsey is saying it was wrong to permenantly ban, rather than suspend Trump.

He's also saying it was a business decision, and it shouldn't have been. Honestly I don't know what that means. Every decision Twitter makes is a business decision. He violated the rules repeatedly and got away with it, I think it was absolutely the right choice.

s1artibartfast2• 4 years ago

He's also saying it was a business decision, and it shouldn't have been. Honestly I don't know what that means.

It means the decision was driven by which option drives higher profit, and not a moral position.

tomlin4• 4 years ago

Honestly, this whole "Elon Musk is the enemy" narrative has to take a self-reflection.

"Current Twitter" – the one that is supposingly the angel of protecting the will of the people – got Trump elected. Full stop. Trump's tweets were promoted by Twitter. So in the life time of Twitter, "Current Twitter" wants to take credit for the last 5 seconds? Good luck with that.

mattbrewsbytes• 4 years ago

A ban on a web site is usually driven by one or more violations of Terms of Service. Some of those Terms of Service are linked to criminal laws and the company wants to protect itself from being prosecuted, liable to damages, etc.

I dislike the use of the words "freedom of speech" when it comes to social media/web sites because uneducated people seem to think a ban is a violation of the 1st US amendment. Which is even sillier when a website allows users globally. I doubt the conversations will suddenly change to "freedom to violate ToS" but I feel like there is a better wording than "freedom of speech".

If a camping website banned content about Bigfoot because they wanted to and you posted something about Bigfoot and got banned, its not a freedom of speech issue, its more like a "No Shirt, No, Shoes = No Service" issue.

sascha_sl3• 4 years ago

Let's be completely honest. Twitter bans people based on metrics and 1-2 seconds of review per report (possibly by a human!).

Trump got the white glove treatment of actually evaluating his compliance with the TOS, likely with an actual lawyer involved too.

Gigachad2• 4 years ago

Freedom of speech is just a loose concept. The first amendment is an implementation of freedom of speech. It’s still accurate for a business to say they support and implement freedom of speech even if they are not legally obligated to.

SilverBirch• 4 years ago

Honestly, this entire thing is ridiculous. The logic behind Dorsey's comment on this is essentially "I don't think Trump should've been banned for his actions but I didn't feel comfortable saying so at the time. So I banned him, waited for the fuss to die down, and now I'm going to change my mind because I've got political cover".

The only good thing I think that will come from this deal is that Musk will be direct about his absurd position where Dorsey was two-faced. It's absolutely wild to see Dorsey essentially publicly admit that he disagreed with most of his own decisions running twitter.

ece• 4 years ago

He's getting a billion dollars out of this, maybe that's playing a part too, to lend Musk some additional cover. Look, even the guy who banned him thinks differently now.

ck2• 4 years ago

I mean that was the whole reason Musk bought twitter, you will never convince me otherwise.

But are there things that can get you banned on the "new" twitter?

Because then any concern about unbanning him and similar is a moot point because they will be banned again within a month or two as long as rules are enforced.

However I am dubious rules will be enforced. I think everything is going to be "nudge nudge wink wink".

thunkshift1• 4 years ago

Tell him to focus on square.. looks like he isn’t happy being out of the limelight and wants back at twitter

ljw10012• 4 years ago

Twitter is in the outrage business. What’s not to like?

ddingus3• 4 years ago

I agree with reversing the ban.[1] Right along with many others.

Frankly, permabans really need thinking through.

At a minimum, multiple bans, or feature limits should precede them, and there should be required process associated with a permanent ban, including appeals.

That may seem excessive and or burdensome. I agree.

Small venues that do not come with considerable life implications can and should be exempt.

Big venues are making plenty of money, or have the means to do that, and are interwoven with society to a degree worth the effort.

In general, the cancel moves we see rising in prominence are not answers in themselves. Trump sucks. Alex Jones sucks, and arguably more!

Banning them was not helpful. It does feel good to those who dislike their speech, but it had near zero impact on others who value and seek more of their speech. Closing the door hard luke that hardens those people, who then present notable resolve to follow a favored speaker and or act on their behalf.[0]

What is does not do is open them up to receive remedial speech of any kind.

Having the media then attack these people, often speaking for them, is not a good look particularly given the level of error (and I am being charitable) in their own speech, often labeled authoritative. Again, despite considerable error.

Finally, we have and will continue to see this abused to silence both critics and competing speech. This speech is both necessary and prior to massive media consolidation, considered normal, healthy behavior in a functioning democracy.

I should also mention there is a shared burden related to speech we do not like and that burden lies with any of us and how we choose to respond to speech we do not like.

That offense can be gamed is a problem too. People are as offended as they think they are and the basis for said offence varies widely. A claim of profound offence can be made and others have very little to validate it with.

At a minimum, responding to speech we do not like with righteous indignation generally escalates the dialog into unproductive meta. Almost any other response will fare better. Other responses include: humor, questions, rebuttals, redirects, reconsideration... any of which can take a conversation t9 a productive, far less harmful place. Emphasis on how we all manage incoming speech would do a lot of good, rather than the ongoing harm being used to cast the idea of free speech aside and or solidify some entities as authorities, sans meaningful checks on their speech, which also gets abused. The most common abuse is manufacturing consent.

[0] Source is behavior observed in a fair number of people who fall into one or more categories implied by my comment.

[1] That is not an endorsement of any kind.

upsidesinclude• 4 years ago

It is baffling that people think a person should be permanently banned from access to any "public forum", which Twitter has become.

To the people deriding Trump, you do recognize that no actual criminals are prevented from excersing speech? Even if you believe he is a criminal, the law of this country does not agree. You dislike him, great. You don't get to remove everything that you disagree with from a public forum.

To the ideologues believing that Republicans are destroying 'democracy', recall that this country is a constutional republic and the reason is because pure democracy, or majority rule, degrades to mob rule. To not make the mistake of equating freedom with democracy.

Not all votes are equal! What blasphemy! Not all people are engaged, informed and care about preserving the sovereignty of the nation. We have a system designed to keep those people from destroying our liberty.

The system allows the people to pick representatives who are sworn by oath to act as an informed and engaged agent on their behalf.

Our duty is to try our best to pick those agents that will put aside their interests and live by their oath.

LightG3• 4 years ago

Oh Lord ...

The last couple of years have been a breath of fresh air ...

The only time I notice Trump now is from his loser supporters posting Shorts on Youtube believing he'll make a come back.

Anyone who believes that taking him off twitter didn't stabilise the political temperature is in la la land.

Jack Dorsey says he agrees with reversing Trump's Twitter ban

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