Can twitter ban Donald Trump's Account?

[Aurrora]

Me kicking you out of my house because you used to many vowels in a sentence is not a free speech issue. And neither is twitter banning anyone. When are you going to get that?

Sure, if it's Twitter's house. But what happens if the government starts looking at what Twitter has decides its less a house and more akin to a gas, electricity or water service, and see that they've been turning off the electricity being supplied to people they disagree with?

[shimerra]

Sure, if it's Twitter's house. But what happens if the government starts looking at what Twitter has decides its less a house and more akin to a gas, electricity or water service, and see that they've been turning off the electricity being supplied to people they disagree with?

And what if I was a magical unicorn that pooped bricks of gold? What happens to Donald Trump's twitter account then?


If the problem changes then the answer usually does too. But just because you want to live in some hypothetical future world doesn't make his crap answer and quintupling down on his stupidity any more wrong about the way things stand now. It is twitter's house. There is no if. Cut the bullshit. They could ban donald Trump's account because the CEO sharted himself and wanted to take it out on someone. They'd probably lose a lot of users because of that but they could. And yes banning Trump because he's a raging douche and you don't want raging douches pissing on your couch is different than telling a black person he can't eat at your restaurant because he had the gal to be black.

If the government decides to nationalize twitter then yes it could be a violation of free speech. And if the government decided to nuke all of twitter's server's at once it'd cease to exist. What the shit do either of those have to do with anything? This is just more of the usual right wing identity politics/victim complex.

[OrcsRLame]

What are you talking about? I'm not using the first amendment to defend their actions, it doesn't even apply. I'm literally saying that opposite, that you can't use the first amendment to they CAN'T ban someone.

Can you even fucking read?

Instead of insulting me, why don't you take a moment to try and understand my point?

What Twitter and Facebook are doing is NOT violating the First Amendment. People are then using that fact as an excuse to say that what Twitter and Facebook does, does not matter at all. As if the only thing we should think about is the legality of an issue. The sentiment expressed in those quotes, is that the behavior is fine since it does not violate the First Amendment, as if that is the be all end all on the topic of free speech.

For the record, if you decide to insult me again, I will stop being cordial, and I am much more competent at being nasty than you are, and I don't care about infractions.

[Aurrora]

What happens when patient zero bites a hospital nurse and starts the zombie apocalypse?

You really think the internet and major network applications evolving into a public utility is that far fetched?

[OrcsRLame]

Please read this in full. Just for the sake of the argument. It's going in circles.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It applies only to Congressional laws.

If you want to sue twitter to try to establish that they are in fact a public place then you'll have to make it through their army of lawyers to do so. And even then your speech can be limited.

Freedom of speech is a bit of a misnomer. It really means less restricted speech. If you want to find out where exactly it applies and to what extent, you have to study the supreme courts interpretations of the amendment.

I am only going to address this once to you because I have addressed this point at least 5 other times already. I am well aware that the First Amendment only applies to government censorship. Free speech is a concept that is totally separate from that though, which is what I have been discussing, along with the equivocation between the two.

If I kidnap you, stuff you in my basement, cut out your tongue and tie you up, I have not violated you First Amendment rights because I am not the government. I have however taken away your freedom of speech.

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*sigh* Right, and the concept of free speech is entirely tied to government censorship. It has fuck all to do with private businesses.

If I, as a private citizen, kidnap you, cut out your tongue, cut off your hands and tie you up in my basement, in function, do you still have your freedom of speech? Note I am not asking if you have your First Amendment rights, I am asking if you still have freedom of speech, if I totally take away any and all ability for you to speak or express yourself.

[shimerra]

If I kidnap you, stuff you in my basement, cut out your tongue and tie you up, I have not violated you First Amendment rights because I am not the government. I have however taken away your freedom of speech.

Speech isn't limited to spoken word in the context of that term. You can still write, sign, and communicate through a multitude of other medium. And if you really want to be technical, which it appears you do for some absurd reason, you can still speak you just can't enunciate as easily anymore. You'd have to knock out the vocal cords there skippy. Next.

Either way this is a stupid semantics argument. Quit being petty, you know exactly what's being referred to here. This may be you being cordial, but you sure aren't discussing in good faith. There's really no reason to die on this particular hill.

[OrcsRLame]

Speech isn't limited to spoken word in the context of that term. You can still write, sign, and communicate through a multitude of other medium. Next.

Fine then, I lobotomize you, cut off your hands, cut out your tongue, cut off your feet and tie you up in a basement in perpetuity. I make damn sure you possess no means to express yourself at all. Do you have freedom of speech or not?

Make an actual argument instead of trying to sidestep the point like a fucking weasel.

[DSRilk]

Expect refusing to bake cakes to Gay couples, that is.

Damn that's good. Well played

A private company can choose not to serve anyone they want outside the realm of discrimination. From a legal standpoint, specifically protected classes. People making abusive or inflammatory comments are not a protected class, thus Twitter can ban them. If you offer a service, the execution of that service cannot be tied to discriminatory practice, thus you cannot refuse to sell a cake to a gay couple. It's pretty clear that there's an obvious legal, if not ethical, difference. The question is does religious freedom allow for discrimination where otherwise it would be illegal - a reasonable question given the wording of the US Constitution. So far, it looks like the SC is pretty split on that. To imply that these two things are legally related issues, however, is simply false.

[Eggroll]

I am hugely in favor of the idea.

[Aurrora]

Speech isn't limited to spoken word in the context of that term. You can still write, sign, and communicate through a multitude of other medium. And if you really want to be technical, which it appears you do for some absurd reason, you can still speak you just can't enunciate as easily anymore. You'd have to knock out the vocal cords there skippy. Next.

Either way this is a stupid semantics argument. Quit being petty, you know exactly what's being referred to here. This may be you being cordial, but you sure aren't discussing in good faith. There's really no reason to die on this particular hill.

Now you're just being deliberately obtuse. By that logic the government can't infringe upon your freedom of speech either. They could lock you up and throw away the key if you say something they don't like, but you're still free to speak your mind within your cell so no violation of the first amendment.

The one not discussing this is good faith is you, and other censorious authoritarians that like to obfuscate the concept of free speech with the first amendment so they can claim that censoring things does not violate the concept of free speech when its a corporation doing it instead of the government.

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Are you talking about the next eight years, today, or some theoretical point in the future when Emperor Trump is a brain in a vat inside a Dalek shell?

Also, yes. The ISPs specifically demanded to not be considered common carriers, or have you missed all of the Net Neutrality drama that is playing out now? If Internet entities are treated like utilities, then they would be bound by super-net-neutrality in a way that our greedy politicians would never allow to happen.

Thanks for proving my point? Net neutrality is the first step towards public utility status, and of course the ISPs are going to oppose that. And right now yes, greedy politicians don't want that to happen. However it a company like say, Twitter, pissed off a powerful politician like say, President Trump, by banning his account that just might rock the boat in favor of neutrality.

[RapBreon]

Banning him from Twitter would be hilarious and I love to laugh.

[OrcsRLame]

I never said it violated the first amendment. It doesn't matter what they do. It's their platform. It's neither immoral nor hypocritical for them to ban speech they don't like. If they don't support it, they have every right to shut it down from their platform. So, the behavior is perfectly fine. Once again, it doesn't violate free speech (obviously legally) but not even the concept itself. If someone goes out of their way to shut down a person's attempt at speaking their mind in all avenues, not just their own platform, then THAT would be violating free speech. As in, telling someone to shut the fuck up or get the fuck out of my house is not anti free speech. Following someone around and constantly shouting over them everywhere they go would be anti free speech.

If you think asking if you can read is an insult then you need thicker skin.

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Sure, both of those would be very anti free speech. Banning someone off a platform I created would not make me anti free speech because you can go establish your platform. Again, why is this hard for you to grasp?

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This is obviously no where near equivalent to banning someone off a social media platform.

Okay, this is some great progress. In fact it's so much progress there's not a lot else to talk about.

Sure, both of those would be very anti free speech.

That's most of what I wanted. I had to pull out an unrealistically draconian example to make the point, but we agree that people that are not the government have the potential to take actions that are against another person's freedom of speech. We are now ~90% in agreement as far as I'm concerned. I have a few things to say about that remaining 10% though if you'll bare with me.

Let's use your example of following someone around and shouting over them everywhere. If you didn't do that, how many people could our hypothetical victim reach with their message? A thousand? Ten thousand? You can't speak to everyone on Earth in person, it's simply no feasible. Twitter has 330 million monthly active users. From a consequentialist point of view, being banned from Twitter is actually worse than being followed around and shouted down, by several orders of magnitude. But maybe you're not consequentialist. Looking at the intentions doesn't make things much better though. From an intentions based point of view, (Deontology, Virtue Based Ethics, etc) if you banned someone specifically because you didn't want their ideas to spread, then that still seems to be pretty anti-free speech. As far as I can see, no matter which way you cut the cake it's still a violation of free speech.

Maybe you disagree with all that though, and that's fine. Have you ever asked yourself why Fascism is bad? Fascism is the merging of government and corporate power, (as defined by Mussolini). The implication there, is that you're taking the two most powerful and draconian forces in society and combining them. That creates unchecked power, which is just a hop skip and a jump away from tyranny. I think you should think long and hard, about if it's actually wise to let a company that controls part of the information flow of 330 million people, to have unchecked power concerning who can use that information flow. An example we've both used a few times, is that of kicking someone out of our house. We both seem to have concluded that that is reasonable. Neither of us has asked though, how large the house is, how many people are inside, and how many people are outside. Is it reasonable to kick someone out of my house because I don't agree with what they have to say, if everyone in the world lives inside my house, and there is no one to speak to on the streets outside? If that is not anti-free speech, de-platforming by a major corporation, then it's some other nameless monster that is more insidious than 'anti-free speech'. The way I see it, between government censorship and corporate censorship, it's just a separation of degrees, one of semantics really.

This post is mostly opinion, now that we have agreed on the facts, so feel free to think that I'm an idiot or whatever.

One last note for anyone that reads this post. If you think that corporate censorship is A-OK because it only happens to Nazis and such, (and I must be a Nazi for being a free speech advocate) think again. https://www.thedailybeast.com/women-...lling-men-scum

[pateuvasiliu]

You honestly couldn't be much more wrong if you were a A Wrongian on Planet Wrong on the continent of Wrongica surrounded by the Wrongic ocean in the country of Wrongistan in the state of Wrongslyvania in the city of New Wrongsville on Wrong Street. Apartment W. For Wrong. Also you work at the University of Wrong as a Professor of Wrong with a grant from the government to find new and exciting ways to be Wrong.


Me kicking you out of my house because you used to many vowels in a sentence is not a free speech issue. And neither is twitter banning anyone. When are you going to get that?



Sure they're criminals. Much the same way a jay walker is. It's a minor civil infraction and the overwhelming majority of them are just people looking to work, go to school, and live their live's peacefully. Your war on illegals is about as productive as the War on Drugs. I.E. a gigantic waste of tax payer money that's done more damage than help.

The racist bit usually kicks in with 90% of the ignorant xenophobic bullshit people like you manufacture to justify their rage boner to block out the reality of the situation. That incoherent, reality denying, lack of critical thinking is the same type of thinking that leads to people thinking forced deportation of 10's of millions of people will be cheap, easy, and a net positive or that a idiotic money pit of a wall is a good idea.

They're just simply not this massive cancer that we need to take a flamethrower and we need to be in a constant state of freaking out about like you and others seem to imply. And a lot of the inuendo about the horde of thieves and rapists crawling over the borders has a least a couple squirts of hot sauce. And by hot sauce I mean racist undertones/train of thought.

Minor? Holy Batman, do you have any clue how damaging illegal immigrants are? When you have people willing to work much lower than minimum wage that makes people hire them instead of the natives. Unemployment rate skyrockets ( because they aren't actual citizens ), state money lowers ( because they don't pay taxes and the ones that do have no jobs )

That's a very ignorant thing to say.

People like me? I don't even live in America. I'm just calling out the moronic SJWs who think being against illegal immigrants means you're racist, which is a mountain of stupid.

[Mormolyce]

Yeah pretty much. The lefties that hate him just scream Racism and bigotry, then make fun of the way he looks, his heritage and his wife.

Uh, you mean his hair and the orange skin?

I'm afraid "fake tan and ridiculous hair" isn't a race.

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Expect refusing to bake cakes to Gay couples, that is.

You're talking about violations of the Civil Rights Act, which applies to "public accomodations" and therefore probably at this stage doesn't extend to internet forums.

But you know, that's probably out of date and could potentially change. If it did then you couldn't ban people for discriminatory purposes, eg you couldn't ban someone from a forum for being black or Jewish or whatever.

[Deleted]

Could they? Yes, due to them being a private company.
Should they? No.

what he says shouldn't be protected by free speech, seeing as most of it is either inflammatory or flat out wrong.

Neither of those would be a reason for something to not be protected by free speech.

[Deleted]

why don't you respond with a couple of Trump's "presidential" qualities - as I have stated a number of times he doesn't possess.

He has the ones that matter - He was elected in accordance with the laws governing the elections, he was at least 35 years old, and he was a lawful natural citizen.

Again, that you dislike him, that you think he does bad things, does not matter - He is still the legitimate president of the United States.

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*sigh* Right, and the concept of free speech is entirely tied to government censorship. It has fuck all to do with private businesses.

Fuck no.
The concept of free speech predates free speech laws by about a fucking Century.

The concept of free speech is not at all restricted to only government censorship.
- The law is restricted to government, because a law forcing people to give a platform to third parties would be problematic as fuck in terms of restricting the liberty of those people.

[Deleted]

Are you being serious? Hate speech isn't enough to warrant getting banned? Twitter bans people for much pettier things.

Hate speech is free speech and no, it does not warrant getting banned for the same reason why your anti free speech stance doesnt warrant getting banned. Thats how freedom works. You get to spread your hate and he gets to spread his. Or do you want people to not be able to speak their mind and resort to violence instead? Why are you a supporter of violence?

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Twitter is a private platform, if you want to censor people with different political views thats called fascism. Twitter can ban anyone, the question is should it resort to fascistic controll. I am apalled at how many people are pro censorship, speaks a lot to the freedom they enjoy that they dont even value it. Censoring trump means censoring you because once you resort to that its free game bitch and hes the one in power. Not that it would be fair to do if he wasnt, not that youd understand why. They are concidered private business at this point but i think "make your own twitter" argument is no logner relevant, its of thesame level like saying "make your own cannalisation and roads". At this point twitter facebook and youtube should be concidered utilities. They are the public square of our times and should have to be forced to respect constitutional protections of the citisens of a constitutional democratic developed countries. I think we are rapidly approaching the time at which they will have to be clamped down on and regulated. This would ensure protections of free speech for citizens and help with the net neutrality issue.

[Zmaniac17]

I am only going to address this once to you because I have addressed this point at least 5 other times already. I am well aware that the First Amendment only applies to government censorship. Free speech is a concept that is totally separate from that though, which is what I have been discussing, along with the equivocation between the two.

If I kidnap you, stuff you in my basement, cut out your tongue and tie you up, I have not violated you First Amendment rights because I am not the government. I have however taken away your freedom of speech.

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If I, as a private citizen, kidnap you, cut out your tongue, cut off your hands and tie you up in my basement, in function, do you still have your freedom of speech? Note I am not asking if you have your First Amendment rights, I am asking if you still have freedom of speech, if I totally take away any and all ability for you to speak or express yourself.

There are laws for kidnapping and assault. There are no laws that establish your right to say anything anywhere. There are no laws that say you can't be banned from a private forum for any reason. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here.

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Hate speech is free speech and no, it does not warrant getting banned for the same reason why your anti free speech stance doesnt warrant getting banned. Thats how freedom works. You get to spread your hate and he gets to spread his. Or do you want people to not be able to speak their mind and resort to violence instead? Why are you a supporter of violence?

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Twitter is a private platform, if you want to censor people with different political views thats called fascism. Twitter can ban anyone, the question is should it resort to fascistic controll. I am apalled at how many people are pro censorship, speaks a lot to the freedom they enjoy that they dont even value it. Censoring trump means censoring you because once you resort to that its free game bitch and hes the one in power. Not that it would be fair to do if he wasnt, not that youd understand why. They are concidered private business at this point but i think "make your own twitter" argument is no logner relevant, its of thesame level like saying "make your own cannalisation and roads". At this point twitter facebook and youtube should be concidered utilities. They are the public square of our times and should have to be forced to respect constitutional protections of the citisens of a constitutional democratic developed countries. I think we are rapidly approaching the time at which they will have to be clamped down on and regulated. This would ensure protections of free speech for citizens and help with the net neutrality issue.

Do you think MMOChampions exerts "fascistic control" by banning certain topics and posts the mods deem to break the terms of service? Freedom to say anything anywhere is not a law in the United States. That is a misguided interpretation of what freedom of speech actually means.

[OrcsRLame]

There are laws for kidnapping and assault. There are no laws that establish your right to say anything anywhere. There are no laws that say you can't be banned from a private forum for any reason. I'm not sure what you're trying to prove here.

I am not, nor was I before, nor will I in the future, discuss the legality of censorship. I am discussing the principle of the matter.

[cubby]

A google search easily proves you wrong, you just are so consumed with a unhealthy hatred of him, that nothing any one says or proves will stick with you. Your hatred is borderline obsessive .

Since it's more than obvious that you don't bother paying any attention to any reality that happens to fly by you, everything I listed above is correct. He's done all those things, in each category that you list as being something you admire him for - nothing I've said is wrong. You just need it to be wrong because you can't be bothered to learn new things for yourself. You are the uninformed electorate that is key to people like Trump getting elected.

If you think I'm wrong, give me examples, factual ones, of each category. I'm all ears. Unlike you, I'm open to the idea I might be wrong.