We can argue about free speech & all that jazz to no end. But at the end of the day it's as simple as not banning elected officials. I don't care how divisive they are, we need to know what they say and do. These are people chosen by the people whether you love or hate them.
Secondly, I just visited Twitter today and at the top it has statements about false accusations and fact checking prominently displayed. I follow a bunch of stats and machine learning people on Twitter, very little to no politics. Why are you forcing your political agenda on me?
Elected officials in America at least are just normal people, the rules apply to them just the same as anybody else. The idea of giving elected officials special exemptions ought to be odious to anyone who considers themself to have American values. I mean it is a private company, so they can implement this sort of thing, but we should be clear that having a special rules for the political class is utterly unamerican in spirit.
> the rules apply to them just the same as anybody else
Wasn't Trump forbidden from blocking people on Twitter by court order?
> "The First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilises a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees," Circuit Judge Barrington Parker wrote, citing several Supreme Court decisions.
Are you also for allowing elected officials to shout "fire!" in a theatre when there is no fire? What if someone dies in the rush to the exit, when there was no fire?
People have already died because of lies being spread. People's lives have been ruined. It's only going to get worse, especially if the election deniers get voted in en masse in Nov.
It's not like the news media stopped quoting every little controversial thing Trump said after he was banned from Twitter... they thrive on sensationalism.
The only thing that's stopped him from being quoted even more is that he's no longer President, so for anything unrelated to his lawsuits or his potential run for Presidency it matters a lot less what he says.
If the Republicans do poorly in the midterms and/or they don't manage to win the Presidency back under Trump's leadership, he'll be ignored even more.
His presence or absence from Twitter has nothing to do with it.
He has his own social network now anyway, so it's not like journalists and his fans don't know where to find him.
Trump wasn't the only elected official removed. I just don't think the president of the U.S. or any democratically elected official should be removed from a public platform such as this.
It's insane. They should be held to the same standards as everyone else. Most of their complaints center around being outraged when the rules they've grown accustomed to being above are finally applied to them.
Hard disagree. The whole point of the rule of law is that elected officials are not supposed to be special, they have to follow the same rules as everybody else. If I'd get banned for a tweet, an elected official should also get banned for the same tweet. Your proposal means creating a caste system where special people get more free speech than the rest of us.
I feel like it means exposing elected officials and making them responsible for what they say online. If anything I view it as holding them to a higher standard.
In addition, it reduces the extreme polarization in our country. When you silence an elected official, you are silencing all the people who voted for such official without forcing them to realize what that elected official said/did.
Secondly, I just visited Twitter today and at the top it has statements about false accusations and fact checking prominently displayed. I follow a bunch of stats and machine learning people on Twitter, very little to no politics. Why are you forcing your political agenda on me?