
Twitter Says CEO Dorsey Informed in Advance of Decision to Tag Trump Tweet - koolba
https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/05/29/technology/29reuters-twitter-trump-minneapolis-dorsey.html
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klipt
I'm no fan of Trump but can't he just argue the tweet means something more
doing the lines of "where there's smoke there's fire" ie "looting might lead
to shooting so we need to stop things before they spiral out of control"?

The fact that Twitter previously allowed hashtags like #KillAllMen to trend
doesn't really indicate a consistent policy against "glorifying violence" to
me...

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thundergolfer
Re: Twitter consistent policy

Twitter does have a consistent and long track record of allowing violent
Twitter posts by the military personnel of nation states.

Distinguishing acceptable violent speech and unacceptable violent speech is to
Twitter a complicated exercise in navigating power and ideology in 2020
America.

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ecf
Twitter doesn’t need to be consistent about anything. You abide by their TOS
or don’t use it, the same way a store with “No shoes, no shirt, no service”
can kick you out.

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klipt
Maybe it's not legally necessary, but consistency is good for user trust.
Plenty of things are legal that are still bad for business.

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HelloFellowDevs
Hope The President doesn’t find out that Dorsey is also CEO @ Square.

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psychometry
Twitter should have suspended Trump's account (and many others) a long time
ago. That they haven't suggests they're more concerned with a loss of traffic
than incitements of violence.

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MaxBarraclough
He was asked about this in a podcast. Episode 148 of _Making Sense_. The
relevant discussion starts at 56:30 and runs for 15 minutes. Unfortunately the
episode is not freely available.

Dorsey talks about the 'public interest' of retaining Trump's rule-breaking
tweets, how people can add their opinions, how it's expected that our leaders
be 'extremely expressive', how it's a 'direct line to the people', how we can
'have a conversation about it'.

I consider his response to be extremely weak sauce. All he's doing is giving
excuses for his failure to consistently enforce Twitter's rules. It's
difficult to avoid your conclusion that it's motivated by traffic.

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psychometry
There's an enormous echo chamber of ignorance centered around Trump's Twitter
account. That's a lot of ad impressions.

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charwalker
And about 50% are bots. I understand non US citizens having a voice but
manipulation by bots is clearly not conducive to public discourse.

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hadtodoit
It's clear Jack doesn't want to kowtow or maybe his ego is bruised but I just
don't understand what he expects to come of this. The President has stacked
the courts in his favor. He will get his way and twitter will take a massive
hit financially.

My best guess is that Jack plans to move the company headquarters out of the
US which would explain why he chose to allow remote work indefinitely. But can
he get it past shareholders? The President had also stated he doesn't want
foreign companies on the NYSE and no other market offers similar liquidity.

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dx034
Saying that companies can't go against the president because he stacked the
courts sounds a lot like a totalitarian regime to me. I really hope the US is
not there yet and that anyone, individual or company, can criticise the
government without fearing retribution.

Now if getting involved is smart from a business perspective is another
question. But but they will have thought about that and also considered the
consequences of not acting.

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qppo
Not to mention the courts have been stacked using the Federalist Society's
shortlist. While I personally think they're a bunch of highly educated kooks,
I don't think that ideologically they'll side with the President in this
fight.

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x86_64Ubuntu
How often do the courts not side with Trump in a meaningful way?

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qppo
Pretty much weekly or bi-weekly? Like I don't want to go out and make a list
of all the court cases and appeals that his administration has lost because
it's not short.

