
COVFEFE Act would make social media a presidential record - obi1kenobi
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/337416-covefe-act-would-make-social-media-a-presidential-record
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dmix
> "President Trump’s frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account
> as a means of official communication is unprecedented. If the President is
> going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we
> must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future
> reference. Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable
> for every post,"

Archiving tweets != holding people accountable

There were countless screenshots on archived websites across the web of the
tweet immediately after it went out.

This is merely political theater to create more layers of control with little
real ROI of the intended problem. What matters most is the _feeling_ of
controlling something which you don't control. The type of policy politicians
love!

I'm sure if this passes it will result in tens of millions of dollars in
consulting fees to what largely could be solved with a server or two hitting
the twitter API to capture each tweet and stored securely. Or a single person
hired to document tweets manually in a database.

I'm curious what exactly Trump isn't being held 'accountable' for here because
every major US and international news organization documents each of his
tweets with whole articles - and clearly including ones he deletes.

I'm sure they could legislate processes to eliminate mistaken tweets and the
risks of human error here, but lets be honest it's not going to make Trump
stop making bold statements at will - which is what they really have a problem
with regarding his Twitter. He does the same on every platform he uses
directly. Are they going to screen his calls to journalists and other people
he talks to as well? Or his aides who leak to journalists version of his day-
to-day interactions without the usual PR filters? If that's not the target
goal then what is really being accomplished here? Eliminating typos and draft
tweets from being accidentally sent out?

~~~
microcolonel
Hilariously, inside the article it is clearly stated, by somebody who speaks
for the institution which would be responsible for this archiving, that the
Tweets are already considered Presidential Records.

> _In January, National Archives spokesperson Miriam Kleiman told the
> Associated Press that social media posts would qualify as presidential
> records, but that statement is not explicitly spelled out in the law._

So not only is the private sector adequately serving the purpose of archiving
the president's Tweets, but the National Archives probably are as well.

I really hope that the people who voted for Mike Quigley are embarrassed that
this is the pathetic, childish level that an Illinois 5 representative
operates at.

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olliej
Ugh, this is a real issue (twitter, or other "social" platforms) are all
presidential communication platforms -- legislation shouldn't (i know, i know,
ideal world, old man shouts at sky, etc) be special cased. It should be "all
communication on any public platform should be archived, no matter the nature
or location of the platform". Naming it the COVFEFE act trivializes what is a
real issue (presidents should not have the ability to retroactively remove
records of public statements).

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gozur88
Dumb. It's not like deleting tweets makes them go away. If this is what
Democrats are bringing to the game it's gonna be a long eight years.

------
tritium
To be honest, this sounds like a terrible idea, but then again something
really _should_ be done about the level of obnoxious nonsense on display.

~~~
dmix
> but then again something really should be done about the level of obnoxious
> nonsense on display.

If only people asked whether something could be meaningfully accomplished
before demanding something be done then we'd have far less bad laws.

