Indeed, regardless of how you feel about any President, do you really want evidence of what they're saying and doing hidden away? I'd guess that if he himself decided to move to a private list that the same people crying for censorship would be crying about that.
This simply isn't Twitter's bag of crap to deal with.
What if Twitter keeps the president's tweets put a banner "this content violates the policies <insert what and why etc>, we don't condone this .... but for the interest of the public discourse we decided to keep this online etc etc"?
To my surprise they have just done this with a pair of his tweets about mail-in ballots (adding a 'get the facts about this topic' button to each tweet) and as you might expect he's throwing a fit.
>I'd guess that if he himself decided to move to a private list that the same people crying for censorship would be crying about that.
He can't. The courts have already decided that because his personal Twitter account is a de facto official channel for White House communication, it has to be public and it has to be preserved. It's why he can't even block people anymore.
All well and good, but look what it's doing to the family of the dead person.
The president's brand is his willingness to say obnoxious things to rile up his opponents and thrill his supporters, but while we could argue that comments about other players in the political arena are fair game, I think this case differs in that he's using a private individual (the dead woman, not the MSNBC journalist) as a prop in his politicking. I don't think much of him targeting the journalist on general principle (I'd like powerful public officials to exercise restraint and embody dignified disagreement) but I don't watch cable news and have no idea what the basis of their spat is, if any.
The basic reason I posted this is that the defense of 'he's a public figure, we need people to see so he's held accountable' is only effective to the degree that people are actually held accountable. The presidents' lawyers take the position that he's legally and politically unaccountable, to the point of having blanket immunity. Twitter is essentially saying the same thing.
>IMHO removing them is helping Trump cover up what an unstable ass he is
More importantly, doing so would help the American people ignore what an unstable ass he is, and ignore their own complicity in electing him and giving him the world's biggest bully pulpit.
Americans need to be reminded of the consequences of their actions day after day after humiliating day, to have their noses rubbed into it like a dog that need to be housebroken, and then maybe they'll learn.
The people I know who voted for Trump were not voting for him so much as against a set of policies that have been very profitable to Wall St. but awful for everyone else. Chief among these is the leveraging of foreign totalitarian states like China to break domestic wages.
I didn't vote for him because I don't think he is any different or has any solutions, but consider that a vote for Biden is a vote for the same Bush-Clinton consensus that will continue those policies.
>but consider that a vote for Biden is a vote for the same Bush-Clinton consensus that will continue those policies.
And Trump hasn't really proven to be a vote against them. The status quo remains firmly entrenched, the rich are still getting richer, and the jobs aren't coming back from overseas (because sending them there was a decision made by businesses, not Congress.)
The more effective strategy would be to focus on changing policy at the state or local level, where it's actually created. We, and by 'we' I mean mostly Republicans (since I live in a state dominated by them,) need to move past this infatuation we have of the President as "CEO in Chief," and with maverick "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" types who promise to turn over the tables of the moneychangers and whip the fear of God into those damn effete Washington city-slickers.
We need to recognize that the office is a political office and that political experience, and experience in matters of law and diplomacy, is not a detriment. We're not electing someone to hang out with in a bar and play darts, we're electing a bureaucrat and giving them the nuclear football. And that there are two other branches of government to pay attention to as well.
We should have higher standards, is what I'm saying.
I agree. I do not think the tweets of government officials should be deletable under any circumstances. Instead they should have an option for strikethrough, or somehow tag as obsolete with link to the revised tweet. I can see how a police department might get some fact incorrect, or information fundamentally changes, and they need to make a correction - so a strike through would achieve that, without deleting the record.
I just deactivated my Twitter account. I encourage others to do the same. Twitter is fun in a mindless sort of way, but it's time to find a less toxic platform to express ourselves -- or better yet, we can just create our own websites. If you build it, they will come.
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[ 4.7 ms ] story [ 43.7 ms ] threadThis simply isn't Twitter's bag of crap to deal with.
He can't. The courts have already decided that because his personal Twitter account is a de facto official channel for White House communication, it has to be public and it has to be preserved. It's why he can't even block people anymore.
The president's brand is his willingness to say obnoxious things to rile up his opponents and thrill his supporters, but while we could argue that comments about other players in the political arena are fair game, I think this case differs in that he's using a private individual (the dead woman, not the MSNBC journalist) as a prop in his politicking. I don't think much of him targeting the journalist on general principle (I'd like powerful public officials to exercise restraint and embody dignified disagreement) but I don't watch cable news and have no idea what the basis of their spat is, if any.
The basic reason I posted this is that the defense of 'he's a public figure, we need people to see so he's held accountable' is only effective to the degree that people are actually held accountable. The presidents' lawyers take the position that he's legally and politically unaccountable, to the point of having blanket immunity. Twitter is essentially saying the same thing.
More importantly, doing so would help the American people ignore what an unstable ass he is, and ignore their own complicity in electing him and giving him the world's biggest bully pulpit.
Americans need to be reminded of the consequences of their actions day after day after humiliating day, to have their noses rubbed into it like a dog that need to be housebroken, and then maybe they'll learn.
The people I know who voted for Trump were not voting for him so much as against a set of policies that have been very profitable to Wall St. but awful for everyone else. Chief among these is the leveraging of foreign totalitarian states like China to break domestic wages.
I didn't vote for him because I don't think he is any different or has any solutions, but consider that a vote for Biden is a vote for the same Bush-Clinton consensus that will continue those policies.
And Trump hasn't really proven to be a vote against them. The status quo remains firmly entrenched, the rich are still getting richer, and the jobs aren't coming back from overseas (because sending them there was a decision made by businesses, not Congress.)
The more effective strategy would be to focus on changing policy at the state or local level, where it's actually created. We, and by 'we' I mean mostly Republicans (since I live in a state dominated by them,) need to move past this infatuation we have of the President as "CEO in Chief," and with maverick "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" types who promise to turn over the tables of the moneychangers and whip the fear of God into those damn effete Washington city-slickers.
We need to recognize that the office is a political office and that political experience, and experience in matters of law and diplomacy, is not a detriment. We're not electing someone to hang out with in a bar and play darts, we're electing a bureaucrat and giving them the nuclear football. And that there are two other branches of government to pay attention to as well.
We should have higher standards, is what I'm saying.