
Twitter Employee Who Deleted Trumps Account Being Hailed Hero - endswapper
http://www.newsweek.com/twitter-employee-who-deleted-trumps-account-being-hailed-hero-700633
======
metalliqaz
This was a very futile and stupid gesture on that employee's part.

The important aspect of this story that we should be talking about is the
incredibly bad idea it is for the POTUS to use Twitter has is primary
communications platform. Twitter is not a defense contractor, they haven't
been contracted by the government at all. The only have to operate by their
own user agreement, which is wholly insufficient for the role they are
playing.

An unknown number of employees with unknown backgrounds have the ability to
put words into Trump's mouth, and that doesn't include anyone who manages to
hack into a company that doesn't have to conform to government security
regulations. They could crash the stock market on a whim. They could
destabilize world peace. The potential damage is almost incalculable.

And the person at fault is Trump. Twitter isn't obligated to take care of this
guy. He shouldn't be using it in the first place. He just doesn't care.

~~~
byebyetech
"This was a very futile and stupid gesture on that employee's part."

I think thats how most non-violent activism / movements starts. As a futile
effort. If his actions starts the dialog on how dangerous it is for the POTUS
to tweet from unreliable communication medium than its not futile at all.

~~~
dogma1138
They didn't do it because they thought that tweeter is too dangerous for
official communication they did it because they disagree with the current
POTUS.

If they had the ability to shutdown whitehouse.gov they would've done so just
as well.

~~~
uoaei
You sound so certain!

~~~
dogma1138
About as certain as on can be in the current climate. As much as I dislike
trump the left has gone off the rails I wonder what would’ve happened if some
country singer would’ve released an album with a lynched Obama on the cover or
if Anne Coulter would’ve posted a picture holding his decapitated head.

------
alistproducer2
Since we're on the topic, I'd like to point out that DT routinely breaks
Twitters TOS with respect to abusive behavior [0] but twitter won't kill the
goose that lays the golden publicity eggs. Now we find out that they were
trying to sell massive amounts of ads to RT [1]. Remember kids, social media
is not your friend.

[0]:
[https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311](https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311)
[1]: [https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/01/twitter-offered-
russian-...](https://www.engadget.com/2017/11/01/twitter-offered-russian-tv-
outlet-15-percent-of-election-ads/)

~~~
ralusek
Do you think that they should ban his account? I'm personally pretty pleased
that the most powerful person in the world has an open channel that clearly
nobody is able to control (otherwise half of the shit he writes wouldn't be
approved, clearly).

Coalesced power is the greatest threat to those without it, and there is no
greater than the executive branch of the US. As asinine as most of his posts
are, I much prefer insight from my enemies than my friends.

~~~
alistproducer2
I do actually. He's a troll - plain and simple. Make that a __hole go to Gab
where he belongs.

Think about that for a second. The president of the USA is a twitter troll.
You really can't make this stuff up.

~~~
hota_mazi
I don't think he's a troll, at least not in the sense of the word I
understand, which implies intent.

DT doesn't tweet things he doesn't really believe in or care about just to
rile people up: he says what he really means and he has no idea of the
consequences (and doesn't care).

It's literally the opposite of a troll.

Which, of course, is terrifying when it's the president of the US.

~~~
alistproducer2
Trolling is all about creating a stink. There's different kinds of trolling,
that come from different places. Some of it is because the troll really
believes what he/she is saying. Some of it is saying whatever gets a rise out
of your target, regardless of what you believe. In all cases a troll is a
troll.

There are DT is, in the literal sense of the phrase, king troll.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
If trolling is really about "creating a stink", regardless of intent/belief,
then doesn't that kill it as a negative term? Are muckrakers trolls?

------
bichiliad
This is super off-topic, but it's really depressing to see the performance,
usability, and intention of a website like Newsweek's. I turned off my ad
blocker and cleared my cache and found:

\- The site auto-plays a video with nothing but music in it, and continues to
load further consecutive videos after the first is finished. \- The site
downloads about 20mb of content by the end of the first video. I paused at the
midpoint of the second, and my browser is still climbing (I killed the tab
past 60 MB) \- There were over 1300 requests made by the end of the first
video. \- The console showed 15 errors and 10 warnings, plus a handful of what
looks like debug logs. \- The ads on the screen literally push all of the text
of the article past the fold. \- Firefox slowed to a crawl across all tabs
(this post became hard to type) and my computer kicked the fans on high (I
have a pretty high-spec'd macbook pro with little else running).

I don't see how either advertisers or content producers benefit from a
relationship like this — they're both trying to get me to interact with
Newsweek.com, yet it's incredibly hard to do so.

------
NumberSix
President Trump's use of Twitter, a new communications technology, to
communicate with the general public and world is no different than Franklin
Delano Roosevelt (FDR)'s use of the then new technology radio -- weekly
addresses to the nation and press conferences -- to communicate with the
nation and as it happens bypass the almost uniformly hostile newspapers of the
1930s.

Trump is no more using Twitter to communicate policy directives to US
government agencies than FDR was using radio. He still has to formulate and
sign executive orders and go through the legally proscribed channels as the
successful legal challenges to the original Muslim ban show.

Rather than try to censor the President of the United States his critics
should rationally and clearly critique his actual policies and actions.

~~~
0x4f3759df
>>his critics should rationally and clearly critique his actual policies and
actions.

I agree in sentiment, but that isn't really how it works anymore (maybe it
never did?). It's just a never-ending barrage of soundbites and 'outrages'
because that's what moves joe public.

~~~
NumberSix
Trump is not the first President to use Twitter. Barack Obama had at least
three twitter accounts:

[http://time.com/3882715/president-obama-now-has-his-own-
twit...](http://time.com/3882715/president-obama-now-has-his-own-twitter-
account/)

Obama in fact tweeted about various controversial topics, producing outrage
among generally conservative Republicans:

[https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/09/16/president-
ob...](https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2015/09/16/president-obama-tweets-
muslim-boy-whose-homemade-clock-was-mistaken-for-bomb)

------
JStanton617
[https://twitter.com/en/tos](https://twitter.com/en/tos):

"You understand and agree that the Services are provided to you on an “AS IS”
and “AS AVAILABLE” basis."

and

"The Twitter Entities make no warranty or representation and disclaim all
responsibility and liability for: (i) the completeness, accuracy,
availability, timeliness, security or reliability of the Services or any
Content;"

Doesn't feel like something you should be conducting international diplomacy
with...

~~~
xir78
Well there’s no risk of it being used for diplomacy

------
neo4sure
What the guy did just sheds more light on twitters double standard with
@realdonaldtrump account. They are just treating him with kid gloves.

------
bmcusick
I bet this will get the employee plenty of high-fives and maybe a few paid-for
drinks at the bar, but it won't help him replace that job. Any employer would
have to ask themselves whether they'd do something similar to one of their
high-profile customers.

------
Overtonwindow
Maybe this will spur Trump to create his own Twitter-like stream on
Whitehouse.gov. That would be better for politicians, a separate political
stream for them, that Twitter can API into.

