jakelazaroff · 5 years ago

One interpretation is that his supporters should feel confident attacking the inauguration knowing he won’t be there to be injured.

They are already openly planning violence: https://twitter.com/slpng_giants/status/1347609631527489537?...

fredley · 5 years ago

He's anticipating (planning?) further attacks on the Capitol and wants to be a safe distance away?

tw04 · 5 years ago

>They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!

That's pretty clearly a veiled threat taken in light of all his other statements and the violence from just days ago.

yanderekko · 5 years ago

Be prepared for more nebulous, uncharitable "you're lending support to those who promote violence" bans in the future. Wouldn't be surprised to see it being used more aggressively across a variety of platforms in the coming weeks.

busymom0 · 5 years ago

The downvotes on these sensible comments clearly shows me HN is filled with anti-liberals who support big tech billionaires while claiming to be resistance.

Definition of Liberal used to be: "Willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one's own; open to new ideas. Relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise."

cossatot · 5 years ago

The article states in Twitter's reasoning that:

The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.

Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.

It seems possible if not likely that Twitter is closely monitoring how his followers are reacting to the tweets (at a scale that none of us are really capable of), and the permanent ban results most closely from that.

It is also possible that Twitter is trying to evade liability in case there are more attacks and there was some organization on their platform.

SpicyLemonZest · 5 years ago

I'd rather live in that world than the world where my national legislature flees their chambers in fear of a mob trying to overturn the democratic process. Do you have a third option to suggest?

asenchi · 5 years ago

Yes, because as the article discusses, in context these tweets are being interpreted by his followers as, “don’t give up.” There are already postings on Parler about coming back to DC on the 19th and 20th.

jdelaney · 5 years ago

If you read the post it's pretty clear that a random person saying either of those won't get them banned. Twitter talks a lot about the context around them, how other people are interpreting them, and how past actions of Trump are influencing their decision.

mrtranscendence · 5 years ago

It's their platform. I probably couldn't get an editorial in the NYT, either, should I throw a fit about that too?

netsharc · 5 years ago

The linked blog post actually did the opposite of what you're doing and put these tweets in context. He didn't just say these words unconnected to anything, man.

Gotta love people -- on a news site made for people who tinker with computers -- thinking in binary and not having nuance.

joshuamorton · 5 years ago

Subtext is important. The "Assessment" section of the linked article is pretty clear:

This determination is based on a number of factors, including:

- President Trump’s statement that he will not be attending the Inauguration is being received by a number of his supporters as further confirmation that the election was not legitimate and is seen as him disavowing his previous claim made via two Tweets (1, 2) by his Deputy Chief of Staff, Dan Scavino, that there would be an “orderly transition” on January 20th.

- The second Tweet may also serve as encouragement to those potentially considering violent acts that the Inauguration would be a “safe” target, as he will not be attending.

- The use of the words “American Patriots” to describe some of his supporters is also being interpreted as support for those committing violent acts at the US Capitol.

- The mention of his supporters having a “GIANT VOICE long into the future” and that “They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!” is being interpreted as further indication that President Trump does not plan to facilitate an “orderly transition” and instead that he plans to continue to support, empower, and shield those who believe he won the election.

- Plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.

Context is important when evaluating words. The president has historically shown a pattern of speaking out of both sides of his mouth ("stand back and stand by"). The pattern continues here.

spion · 5 years ago

Everyone focuses so much on censorship but nobody focuses on the opposite, that is - what does social media promote by default.

Well, this is what they promote: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146 . They promote content that results with engagement since thats most profitable for them, above all else. It just so happens that emotional fake novelty spreads the most and leads to maximum engagement.

Optimizing for engagement above all else is what has lead to that unhealthy, toxic environment. Monsters have been created, and they are out of control. It doesn't matter who social media companies ban, or what was actually tweeted: if there is a way to interpret it in the most emotionally charged, exciting way, it will eventually be reinterpreted that way, just like a game of broken telephone.

arcticfox · 5 years ago

The guardrails they've laid down are incredibly wide. A police officer died as a result of extreme rhetoric they left up from this guy - he had more than enough chances. I agree that these Tweets are only mildly inflammatory; but given the context that he should be doing everything in his power to calm the situation he caused, they're completely inappropriate.

Given that, "Is that really the world you want to live in?" ... Yes.

jlg23 · 5 years ago

Absolutely not. But neither do I want any tech that becomes successful to be automatically be controlled by some somehow elected instance.

So, for this specific case: OK, Twitter, got you. We happen to be on the same side, but your reaction makes me migrate my (non-existing, for the same reasons) twitter account to something else.

IMHO, we need to ban every government and their agencies from relying on commercial services only: A minimalistic message routing protocol should exist that governments require participants in their market-place to support.

gumby · 5 years ago

> To all the censorship apologists here: you've given unelected and unaccountable people at big tech companies the ability to decide what people can say in public. Is that really the world you want to live in?

You have things backwards: they haven't and in fact I do and already do.

What gives Twitter the right to decide what can be said via its software is the first amendment to the US constitution. Which is a world I live in and do want to live in -- it's stronger and better than the "free" speech guarantees in Europe.

The first amendment prevents elected people from deciding what people can and can't say in public.

And twitter banning someone doesn't actually control what they can say "in public", merely on Twitter. I don't use twitter and I heard about this from one of those other channels.

Throughout US history the person with the press has been able to decide what is printed on its press. Today there are more opportunities to be heard than ever before.

code_sloth · 5 years ago

> Imagine living in a society where saying either of these things is a banning offense.

These tweets HAVE to be taken in context. It would be disingenuous to take every single one of his tweet at face value without considering his influence and position. He's dog whistled enough in the past, and look where that led.

> .. what people can say in public

Twitter != public Twitter cannot prevent you from physically speaking your opinion

The very idea of "freedom of speech" translates pretty poorly in the era of social media. Giving someone the freedom to speak their mind is orthogonal from giving them the ability to instantly amplify and broadcast their speech.

conradfr · 5 years ago

He posted there apparently and Twitter removed the tweets.

https://twitter.com/banthebbc/status/1347720547455688704

(not endorsing this account, just linking to the screenshots)

setpatchaddress · 5 years ago

s/social media/the web/

epistasis · 5 years ago

Political wrongthink has nothing to do with this. It's about the incitement to violence, something that even the 1st amendment doesn't protect.

They're that way regarding pornography, or even App names that give the hint of promoting drug use (Amphetamine, recently). Pretty much everything that's not acceptable on the 10pm news is kept out of app stores.

epistasis · 5 years ago

Twitter places plenty of restrictions on acceptable speech on their platform, regularly bans accounts for bad behavior, and regularly gives timeouts to accounts. Even mere insults are enough to get a week long timeout on Twitter.

I don't think I've ever seen Verizon suspend an account because of insults by phone call. Doesn't seem the least bit similar.

rufus_foreman · 5 years ago

> Twitter shows every side of the story.

That's going to keep some securities fraud lawyers busy.

st1x7 · 5 years ago

Of course. It would be weird if a company wasn't able to change its own policy.

esoterica · 5 years ago

What does poisoning the rivers or feeding people contaminated food have to do with banning people from Posting on a private forum.

arentyouspecial · 5 years ago

What charade? I thought capitalists loved capitalism, oh except when your favorite fascist gets thrown off a stupid website.

leephillips · 5 years ago

Rewind a little more and just about anything is what fascism looks like “at the beginning”.

valvar · 5 years ago

I wouldn't go so far as to call Twitter Fascist. Authoritarian and repressive, perhaps, but their ideology is pretty different.

bitlax · 5 years ago

Hitler owned a dog.

mmastrac · 5 years ago

Yeah. We should have started crushing the alt-right years ago, honestly. It's pretty sad how smart people get sucked into these conspiracies and start following dear leader so quickly.

ctdonath · 5 years ago

Who? The guy who followed the laws, albeit creatively? Or the mob that is canceling diverse thoughts on imputed pretexts?

im3w1l · 5 years ago

The official east German name for the Berlin Wall was "Antifaschistischer Schutzwall". This is what communism looks like. Call anything and everything you don't like fascist, and use the scaremongering to instate tyranny.

tacocataco · 5 years ago

Wasn't the brain removed in that classic frog and boiling water experiment?

my123 · 5 years ago

Social networks are much more informal than the other tools at the disposal of a president, unlike press releases or conferences. They can also be diffused widely and in a very short amount of time.

(but then the question is? is that a good thing? or having a failsafe as a good press secretary is a better idea, even if we get to know less about what a politician really thinks)

chillwaves · 5 years ago

No one here could honestly hold the position that Donald Trump is somehow silenced by this, but you'll note how many people are willing to contort themselves around this and other lies.

As pointed out elsewhere, he is the President of the US and all that entails, he has plenty of ways to get his message out including even the official @POTUS twitter account.

Just more dishonest nonsense that we have to wade through.

grahamburger · 5 years ago

I don't directly disagree and I feel kind of weird about this too, but the idea that a private company could have been 1) big enough to matter and 2) blocked the head of the government from using the service without literal heads rolling in USSR 40 years ago doesn't match with my understanding of that era.

Actually if Twitter were silently forced to not only carry the president's message but also boost it to everyone's feed and secretly silence his opponents that feels more USSR to me, and feels like almost the opposite of what's happening here.

dannyw · 5 years ago

I’ve been sitewide banned from Reddit twice. It’s always been this way.

1propionyl · 5 years ago

No. Right now, they are in fact just private companies. They are not de jure social utilities, even if they act as if they are de facto.

Now, maybe they should be, and should be regulated as such. Maybe we should have a conversation about delegating services which are key to our social fabric to what are just private companies. But that's somewhat orthogonal to the issue at hand.

Additionally, should be noted: if the government attempted to coerce or strong-arm Twitter to keep Donald Trump's account online, that would absolutely be a textbook 1st Amendment violation.

Corporations are legal persons, and have constitutional rights under the 14th Amendment. Coerced speech is not free speech.

wwright · 5 years ago

I think this is an instance of the biggest, most disastrous fallacy of the last half century: that a company is a social utility.

It’s not. It’a a bunch of rich people in California. If you want a public utility for communication and socializing, go help build one. Contribute to Mastodon or the rest of the fediverse. Write to representatives (or become one yourself) and propose legislation to fund a public tool that is actually owned by the people. It could even be part of the fediverse!

But asking Twitter to do any random thing someone wants because they are a big company is insane and is going to cause us nothing but pain.

Fifer82 · 5 years ago

You put it more eloquently than I could. It is a private company but it also hosts world leaders as a dispatch service. Something feels off about a single company being able to indiscriminately terminate voices at a whim.

decebalus1 · 5 years ago

> these companies are more than just private companies they are social utilities.

No, no they're not. If you or others personally perceive them as utilities, you have skewed perception of reality. I mean not even the ISP you're using to access them aren't considered utilities. It's funny that the same people who applauded Pai for the net neutrality thing are the ones complaining about 'big tech censorship'.

karaterobot · 5 years ago

I see there's a wikipedia entry about social media as public utility (which I take to be what you mean by 'social utilities' in the sense of regulation). To my knowledge, though, this is just a theoretical construct, not a legal one, yet in this thread it's seems to be taken for granted that treating Twitter as a utility is just another tool in the (U.S.) government's toolbox. Is there any reason to think it actually is? Seems offhand like a stretch, but I'm no legal scholar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_media_as_a_public_utili...

ineedasername · 5 years ago

Electric & phone providers had use of public resources & space, a right-of-way across private land, etc.

inscionent · 5 years ago

FiOS doesn't have to service you

sixothree · 5 years ago

It's within their right and probably a terrible corner we have painted ourselves into. But you can't even get people to use firefox. So what to do?

ndndmskksk · 5 years ago

To follow up, if I would have to imagine it for a book, this is how I would write it — why I think there needs to be better regulation/rights here.

How long until it happens to a marginalized population at scale?

Generally curious your thoughts otherwise. Thanks and be well

sixothree · 5 years ago

What defines social media company? You're using social media right now. I'm sure you would expect basic protections.

4ggr0 · 5 years ago

* behaves like a xenophobic asshole online *

* experiences backlash, gets banned *

"Help, that's unfair! The left is censoring me!!"

Astonishing how many times I've seen this exact situation play out. Reminds me of kids doing a bad thing and then crying and shifting blame when they get caught.

wp381640 · 5 years ago

In the terrorism of the 60s through to the 90s a common demand in hostage situations was to have a letter read out in the media. The PFLP would do it, the Red Army Brigades, even the Unabomber demanded his manifesto be printed

They needed to take hostages to get published because most media wouldn't air their messaging because of their support of violence

In the modern age they'd all have free platforms and likely amplification.

hrbf · 5 years ago

I believe they did so to fire a warning shot, to be able to argue later that they were not banning immediately. I bet they knew that guy wouldn’t be able to keep his thumbs in his pockets – and that’s 100% on him.

ardy42 · 5 years ago

> He literally told people to stay peaceful...

It's not like that's all he said...

CamperBob2 · 5 years ago

Yeah, and so did Charles Manson, who also never laid a hand on anyone.

Kim_Bruning · 5 years ago

Yes, in the tweets that stayed up.

This a big reason why I dislike censorship. It distorts everything, and removes evidence.

thefucnjosh · 5 years ago

And that grey area is admittedly harder to give context to when the medium for it is text....but since he's the president and he's been physically SAYING falsehoods that lead to this situation, he should have been banned sooner.

syshum · 5 years ago

Yelling Fire is "Holmes' famous quote comes in the context of a series of early 1919 Supreme Court decisions in which he endorsed government censorship of wartime dissent — dissent that is now clearly protected by subsequent First Amendment authority." [1]

Holmes would later reverse his own ruling yet this quote will never die even though it has no bearing on actual law today and in realty "yelling Fire" would likely be protected speech

Remember "After Holmes' opinions in the Schenck trilogy, the law of the United States was this: you could be convicted and sentenced to prison under the Espionage Act if you criticized the war, or conscription, in a way that "obstructed" conscription, which might mean as little as convincing people to write and march and petition against it. This is the context of the "fire in a theater" quote that people so love to brandish to justify censorship." [1]

That is not a position one should be supporting if they value free Speech

It's Time to Stop Using the 'Fire in a Crowded Theater' Quote [2] Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough [1]

[1] https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...

ashtonkem · 5 years ago

The phrase “fire in a packed theater” in the legal context is actually based on a case where someone was jailed for peacefully protesting the draft for WW1 (Schenck v. United States). It has no relation to actual violence, and is in fact a fantastic example of how “harm” by speech can be abused by a malicious government to jail people for what should be protected speech.

It’s no longer good law, thank goodness. Now we have the much narrower Brandenburg test, which requires that speech be likely to cause “imminent lawless action”.

thefucnjosh · 5 years ago

As they should be, equality under the law should include the President. And the things he said were not protected speech.

thefucnjosh · 5 years ago

I don't disagree. But sedition isn't protected speech. So if they didn't ban him they're opening themselves up for lawsuits. In no country on earth is it legal for anyone to publicly advocate the overthrow of their government. And there's already decisions on the books proving this, as well as the legal precedent of cold-war anti-communism laws.

kyleblarson · 5 years ago

They still let the Ayatollah Tweet.

chrononaut · 5 years ago

I have come to this realization recently as well. "Deplatforming" people of significant real-world power, or largely any world leader, is notably different than deplatforming an average person. A lot of comments I feel are conflating the effects of banning an average person, or an average person trying to become more well-known ("candidate Trump"), with an established world leader.

People with power have real consequences on the life of each individual. I admit I don't know how to treat those two groups but I don't think the arguments used for the average person are the same arguments that should be applied to world leaders, and vice versa.

esc_colon_q · 5 years ago

Don't forget GA - Dems won full control, and will now have at least some ability to legislate. So Twitter et al need to be thinking about how to get ahead of the complaints that the left has against section 230 (the left hates it because they are not forced to aggressively moderate, the right hates it because they are allowed to moderate at all). This was not looking likely to be something they had to worry about until the surprise sweep in Georgia, so I'd argue that may have played as big a role as the craziness in DC.

mNovak · 5 years ago

The latter I think is being underrated as a major contributing factor.. fear of retribution and all that.

panarky · 5 years ago

AND the evidence this movement is organizing more violence around the inauguration.

With this knowledge, Twitter would be complicit if they continued to enable and amplify it.

thefucnjosh · 5 years ago

Yeah their hesitation shouldn't have happened. They shouldn't have issued those weird corrections to his statements either, they would have had MORE credibility had they come down sooner by actually assigning someone to give the public legitimate reasons for them to ban him.

picardythird · 5 years ago

I’m not defending race rioting. But the context of the riots that occurred over race and the riot that occurred where a mob was two doorways away from killing members of congress is contextually important, as is the fact that the capital rioters answered to exactly one (1) person. And the fact that that one person who had the power to call in the national guard to prevent such deaths appeared uninterested in doing so.

thefucnjosh · 5 years ago

Who has died? Can you name names?

metabagel · 5 years ago

Considering the sheer number of protests and protesters involved, BLM protests were mostly peaceful.

https://today.uconn.edu/2020/10/study-2020-protests-shows-di...

"While the summer of 2020 experienced 100 days of violence and destruction in cities, according to the the U.S Department of Homeland Security, the most recent CCC study of 7,305 separate events in May and June suggests that 96.3% of events involved no property damage or police injuries and 97.7% of events had no injuries reported. Pressman spoke with UConn Today about the new report."

In contrast, the attack on the capital building was a deliberately violent attack on the seat of our national government. Rioters brought zip ties to potentially hold lawmakers hostage, blunt force weapons, and firearms. It was inherently a violent undertaking with revolutionary aims.

ksk · 5 years ago

100% agree, these social media companies with their fake empathy and double standards are not fooling anyone.

enkid · 5 years ago

Donald Trump was the one saying the 2016 election had massive voter fraud. He was saying it before, after, and during that election. His words in 2016 and 2017 we're much worse in spreading distrust in the electoral system than any democrat since the Civil War. [0]

https://www.cnn.com/2016/11/27/politics/donald-trump-voter-f...

Guvante · 5 years ago

> sustained left-wing effort to paint the 2016 election as illegitimate

That is such a purposely flawed statement that it is effectively a pure lie even if some of those beats are somewhat true.

Trump has been claiming election fraud since 2016. He claimed he got more votes than Clinton and that three million people voted illegally in California which is why he lost the popular vote.

The only things claimed illegitimate by anyone with any power in the left were either "it isn't fair that the popular vote doesn't matter", "we shouldn't disenfranchise voters as the GOP keeps trying to do in the name of 'election security'" or "certain actors illegally acted around the 2016 election".

There is a world of difference between that last one (the closest to illegitimate) and an actual claim of fraud.

Robotbeat · 5 years ago

Trump was not banned for his wars/drone strikes that killed civilians (which he increased, BTW: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-afghanistan-middle-... ).

He was banned for inciting violence using Twitter's platform.

I suppose if Trump ordered unlawful drone killings using Twitter, they also may have banned him for that, but Trump used Twitter to control mobs, not drones.

lovecg · 5 years ago

In this case you had people with flags bearing a specific person’s name on them. Certainly muting the only person bearing that name will have a direct effect.

dmwallin · 5 years ago

These two situations couldn’t be more vastly different.

The rally was organized by Trump, the mob that marched on the capital was there for Trump, marching with flags for Trump, encouraged and incited by Trump, and aimed at overthrowing a legitimate election in favor of Trump.

BLM was marching for lost lives that could no longer speak for themselves, organized by and for no single individual, carrying flags to honor the fallen, aimed at creating a future where less people would die unnecessarily at the hands of law enforcement.

_euac · 5 years ago

Yep, as ‘delusional’ as all the warnings from people who said Trump and his group of psychopaths were going to end up causing a violent attack on democracy... that clearly was an overblown concern, right?

throwaway316943 · 5 years ago

It reads like left wing conspiracy theories, it’d be funny if it wasn’t so sad.

hn_asker · 5 years ago

looting isn't the same as storming the capitol.

trianglem · 5 years ago

Looting is reasonably acceptable especially in light of genuine BLM grievances with police brutality. This was storming of the capitol with highly malicious intent (pipebombs, zipties, guns) based on utter lies. You’re arguing in bad faith.

Entalpi · 5 years ago

Ah, yes. Looting and disrupting the process of democracy seems on the same level. No? Oh.

lstamour · 5 years ago

Does Twitter have enough resources to police all verified profiles? It would seem to me Twitter has an App Store problem when it comes to inconsistent enforcement of rules?

trianglem · 5 years ago

Racist justice always gets a pass when compared to fascist nonsense based on lies. For the sheer scale of the BLM protests they were overwhelmingly peaceful.

smaryjerry · 5 years ago

The tweet that got him banned literally said go home in love and peace. The perception of him as an adversary and that everything he says has some hidden meaning is the only thing getting him banned by tech companies. This entire blog is trying to out words in his mouth as well.

Aeolun · 5 years ago

> All of them were just pushed off that fence.

If they were pushed off the fence by this, they would have never landed on the other side of the fence in any case.

nopriorarrests · 5 years ago

Parler is dead, aka banned by apple and google 1-2 hours ago.

klyrs · 5 years ago

Not yet... so far he's gotten slapped for using @POTUS and @TeamTrump. Is this the "bargaining" phase of grief?

rattlesnakedave · 5 years ago

If you see their radicalization as the problem instead of a symptom you’re missing the plot.

mistermann · 5 years ago

Was a survey performed as people were entering the grounds?

Also, how does one learn how to see the future with such certainty? It's like there was a sale on crystal balls and everyone but me got one. :(

rattlesnakedave · 5 years ago

This comment is entirely divorced from reality.

c22 · 5 years ago

They should have just shadowbanned him.

_y5hn · 5 years ago

Indeed, even inaction may be infuriating to these mislead people.

NE2z2T9qi · 5 years ago

Look at the utterly insane mental gymnastics you're engaging in. "People are angry at constantly being treated with contempt and having their elected representative smeared. Let's impeach him again, call all his supporters terrorists, and ban them from communicating!" People like you and the Democrats seem desperate to cause more violence instead of de-escalating the situation with a peaceful, dignified exit. It's a shame that you care more about "owning Trump" one more time rather than promoting peace, but I'm not surprised.

dredmorbius · 5 years ago

His supporters are already on fire.

This is reducing repeat ignition and stilling winds fanning flames.

See Chamberlain on the effectiveness of appeasement.

Retric · 5 years ago

Calling everyone who voted for Trump a supporter isn’t accurate. I know people who strongly dislike him and voted for him over Biden. As a lower bound you can estimate around 8% of voters will donate to each campaign which clearly marks them as supporters. Perhaps as many as 40% of those 74 million votes come from strong supporters who might not donate but will advocate for him among friends and family etc.

However, mostly it’s based on party affiliation where people voting against him in a primary would vote for him in a general election.

hooande · 5 years ago

Tell the trump supporters you know that this is about imminent threat. trump's words just started a historic riot, and it looks like he may say more things that spark unrest in the immediate future. This isn't about both sides or BLM. He just, two days ago, caused insurrection. It would be negligent to just watch him do it again

whatanattitude · 5 years ago

I’m a Trump supporter who voted for him twice. I condemn what happened in the capital as well as the BLM riots that burned down businesses. I’m okay with both sides being met with gas and rubber bullets. All of trumps supporters aren’t lunatics. I would say the people who stormed the capital are maybe 10% of his support in the type of person who would attack someone over politics.

trynewideas · 5 years ago

> he's now a lame duck, he doesn't really have power anymore

you can try telling that to the 5 dead people from the sacking of the Capitol I guess

fapjacks · 5 years ago

I think you're right, that this is actually a simple calculus about power and money (as it always has been and always will be). It's really the thing that grinds my gears when I forget myself: The duplicity and virtue signaling. The ad economy having brought back yellow journalism and endless emotional pleas. The internet being used in massive propaganda campaigns and allowing children and non-citizens a voice in forums that people perceive as our civic spaces -- even though they aren't -- because it is actually impossible to "moderate" the massive social media platforms (despite their promises). I like to think that I'm up on classical Stoic philosophy, but I still struggle sometimes to divorce myself from the fervor. It's so human.

My guess is that we are quickly approaching a point in time when culture will start to swing the other way, and the internet will become this thing that people don't take seriously, haha much like it was in the 90s. That, and some combination of that and censorship. And the tech monopolies absolutely will not survive the level of influence they have now, even if they think they are playing it safe by supporting a particular political faction which happens to be popular at the moment. I think things are going to change fairly rapidly in this direction because it turns out being connected constantly is actually pretty awful in most of the ways that count. Thankfully, however, it seems most folks understand this in a kind of unspoken, visceral way. The same sort of "self-policing" feeling you get when you've wasted 12 hours straight playing Skyrim. It just feels dirty.

throwawaysea · 5 years ago

This. There are groups like Rose City Antifa in Portland or EDM (Every Day March) in Seattle that regularly engage in widespread violence, disruption, and illegal behavior. They organize and advertise and evangelize their events on all the typical social media platforms. They haven’t been given even a warning, let alone a ban. And yes, people have died due to these groups’ actions.

hn_throwaway_99 · 5 years ago

Riots didn't "just happen". They happened because Trump held a rally telling his followers the lie that what was going on in the Capitol was stealing the election from him, and to march on the Capitol. His tweets were part of that message. The fact that those two particular tweets were not the most egregious ones he's ever made is pretty irrelevant.

syockit · 5 years ago

As an outsider, the situation is quite amusing to see. One side wants to revoke 230 so that the tech companies would stop policing content. Another side wants to revoke it so that the companies would police more content instead.

starfallg · 5 years ago

Your right to shout doesn't override my right to not have to listen to you.

And it so happens that most people don't want to listen or give their platform to a sore loser looking to overturn a democratic election by force.

Actually sore loser is a rather generous term. In Europe we call these people fascists.

Aeolun · 5 years ago

> private control over the national means of communication

Nobody was forcing the president to use twitter to communicate. Now he’ll have to find a different platform.

NicoJuicy · 5 years ago

You're making the billionaire sound like he's a normal guy and everything else is undemocratic.

Who picked any of his family members in top positions? And his election was literally based on attacking the other candidate, not on content.

ryanSrich · 5 years ago

I’m for all speech. Regardless if I agree with it or not. I would rather debate ideas I disagree with rather than they fester underground.

“violent inciting free speech” is a subject take on Trump’s tweets whether you like it or not. I’d rather make that distinction for myself instead of relying on the judgment of some Twitter employee I’ve never met.

pupdogg · 5 years ago

I agree. Verbally assaulting, belittling someone, or having a physical fight never has and never will solve any problems. However, that would only be the case if we lived in a perfect world. History tells us otherwise. Also, how someone delivers their message is more deeply rooted into a persons upbringing/nurturing and life experiences than being told how to act. I personally have a couple friends that I refer to as short-fused, they tend to loose their temper in no time and over things I would think are unimportant. However, I’ve accepted them as friends because I know that those small spurts of rage do not represent their genuine friendship with me (this is from knowing them over 10 years). I’m 40 at this point and something I’ve come to realize is that every person has a cut-off age, after which, no matter what you try to teach or tell them, they will not be able to change their way of life (specifically how they interact). Does that mean that they’re a bad person? I wouldn’t know until I am personally able to engage into an interaction with him or her. My wisdom has confirmed to never judge a book by its cover and that was not the case when I was in high school. My few cents. Happy new year bud!

throwaway4good · 5 years ago

It is bad for a number of reasons.

Mostly because the us at this moment needs healing, not further escalation of conflict.

scoopertrooper · 5 years ago

How many police officers have you killed since receiving this post?

dageshi · 5 years ago

Construct your own bubble of reality to legitimise any and all actions you might choose to take?

nkrisc · 5 years ago

If it's only you, then nothing.

danaliv · 5 years ago

I suspect no matter what we do you’re going to continue arguing in bad faith while pretending nothing happened Wednesday and Trump isn’t sui generis.

thereare5lights · 5 years ago

Prove their point by getting millions of others to also receive it in a harmful manner and then also have them take violent action.

1propionyl · 5 years ago

Ah, but here's the rub: danaliv isn't (I don't think...) the President of the United States, much less one who has repeatedly offered support and comfort to people who have committed acts of violence and insurrection.

Context matters.

bcrosby95 · 5 years ago

The problem is whether through incompetence or on purpose, Donald Trump has a history of being unable to - unequivocally - denounce the people that do this shit in his name. He always throws in random bullshit that they can interpret as support for their actions and goals.

Personally I just think he has a hard time saying bad things about people that support him. But it's a pretty big fucking problem when they're doing things like this.

santoshalper · 5 years ago

The tweets were not benign, and the repercussions were obvious and many people predicted this outcome. You are being hopelessly obtuse because you are blinded by fanaticism.

dexen · 5 years ago

Two competing interests: let's ban our political opponent and let's keep our cash cow.

The middle management & line workers of Twitter can monetize their small Twitter stock portfolios pretty quick without shifting the market all that much. Jack, on the other hand, would take a major hit if he tried to sell off his.

=edit=

Clarification on content_sesh's good point: I don't assume whether Jack agrees or disagrees with Trump's points. They are billionaires, might be "frenemies" for all we know. I do assume Jack likes a cash-cow for his major property, Twitter - and tries to balance the upsides & downsides of hosting Trump's contentious content.

gnicholas · 5 years ago

Bingo. Think back to 2015 and how Twitter was doing back then. I don’t know how many millions of real users they’ve added since then, but the Trump presidency has been a boon for them. Way more people on the platform, and tons of them will stick around even after the ban.

SoSoRoCoCo · 5 years ago

I think that's a bit cynical. This is the President of the USA we're talking about. His words matter for the sake of history. I believe it was smart to capture a log of his statements. It will be essential to the record. They should have also disallowed him from deleting tweets, but I suspect they have a copy of everything he ever posted since they claimed it was significant discourse.

nineplay · 5 years ago

I've often wondered if he has any idea how much money Twitter has made off of him.

torstenvl · 5 years ago

Speculation and accusations are distinctly unhelpful.

If you have any evidence of Twitter's motivations, please post it. A leak of the internal e-mail traffic on this decision, if published, would be fascinating.

If not- If you're just asserting as fact your own assumptions about a company whose decision you don't like, then please go troll elsewhere.

fotta · 5 years ago

No, I'm saying _this_ reason was bad, the one cited. I think that there was plenty better evidence from his past tweet history to justify it.

BitwiseFool · 5 years ago

I couldn't have said it any better. It's pure opportunism and moral grandstanding.

syshum · 5 years ago

I have wondered this for the last few years, but why do people refer to Trump as 45? No other president that I can recall has been referred index number of their presidency, I do not see people calling President Obama "44" or President Bush "43"

it is odd to me

netsharc · 5 years ago

Basically, it's the loud uncle who's been screaming nonsense the whole dinner party, and now he's just shoved you and you fell down. The host told him to go to the other room and take 10 minutes to calm down. Now he comes back and returns to screaming...

adamjb · 5 years ago

20th century in roman numerals

TT3351 · 5 years ago

Roman numerals for 20... not a normal convention by any means in MMXXI

Symbiote · 5 years ago

http://letmegooglethat.com/?q=XX+century

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numerals#Modern_use_in_c...

It is the standard way of writing the century in many European countries/languages.

gnulinux · 5 years ago

This is a simple extrapolation of their argument:

> Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.

lenkite · 5 years ago

Look at this record. Trump is the only President in the last 30 years that did not start a War or major military action.

winston_smith · 5 years ago

Not at all certain. Major outlets have cut him off on several occasions. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/04/01/cnn-msnbc...

danijelb · 5 years ago

They are under a (false) impression that they are the majority and when everyone moves to Parler the broader audience will be on their platform. And twitter will become a place where the left is just talking to each other and agreeing. Of course, as we can all see the reality is completely opposite. On any conservative platform you'll find a narrow audience discussing only one thing - politics. And it's boring to discuss only politics, even to them.

newguy1234 · 5 years ago

What's the point of twitter if your favorite commentators aren't even on there? That's the issue. There will likely be a mass exodus of other conservative commentators to parler.

nashalo_nighly · 5 years ago

For someone like Trump with a bruised ego, being welcomed by everyone like a religious figure can be very appealing I think.

cpursley · 5 years ago

Do you see the irony in your comment?

Echo, meet chamber.

newguy1234 · 5 years ago

The next quarterly will be interesting to see what actually went on. DAU will be key.

chowells · 5 years ago

The argument would work the same way if reality was the same, sure. I'd think there was a very severe problem if there was someone going around broadcasting messages that thousands of people interpreted as orders to terminate fetuses.

But that's not what's happening, so the same argument doesn't apply. No doctor believes they're on a a holy mission to end pregnancies. No one is looking for a leader to reinforce this viewpoint. That's very different from the reality in this situation.

thesteamboat · 5 years ago

Thanks for your efforts at moderating. This thread seems like it might be particularly thankless task, so here is some counter appreciation.

mzs · 5 years ago

Incidentally* about half an hour ago:

>from discord: "While there is no evidence of the server being used to organize the Jan 6 riots, Discord decided to ban the entire server today due to its overt connection to an online forum used to incite violence and plan an armed insurrection in the United States"

Cloudfare is still serving thedonald.win though.

* https://twitter.com/alibreland/status/1347694525930680320

KraftKacke · 5 years ago

> "So, looking from that perspective any tweet of any person could be taken down because some conspiracy theorist interpreted it in a particular way."

And yet only Trump attracts this sort of lunatic following. Let's be honest, he does speak in a particular way and avoids statements with clear interpretations. And arguably he actively plays with the occult crowd's obsession with hidden meanings and symbolism.

Fact is, his communications do have severe, real consequences and he fails to recognize that. It is therefore completely irrelevant how something could possibly interpreted otherwise. Human communication doesn't work like that. There is context, state and prediction, which cannot be ignored.

dragontamer · 5 years ago

There's worry that Trump's supporters are seeing it as "Trump's not at the inauguration, time to riot again since he won't be there".

dragontamer · 5 years ago

> these people are insane

While I agree with your emotions, the use of the word "insane" might be counterproductive. As a group, we're mostly optimistic, trying to find the best interpretation of actions.

"Insane" implies that these people are not in control of themselves or their actions. That's not what is going on: they are fully in control and are CHOOSING to feed themselves with conspiracy theories... hoping to undo the 2020 election.

I don't know what word to use to describe them. Conspirators might be more accurate and helpful.

Ex:

> I think that's important to contextualize: these people are conspirators and are acting on these tweets. The Q people dissect these tweets twisting them to confirm their conspiracy beliefs.

By and large, these people are NOT suffering from any mental illness. They'll be going to work on Monday, and will probably take off this weekend, maybe go to Church on Sunday. They are choosing to participate in the conspiracy.

ttt0 · 5 years ago

Okay, so the solution to calm these crazy people down is for twitter to ban Trump and then post his tweets that supposedly call for violence on their blog, so the Streisand effect will kick in and even more people will see it? I think that at this point you have to ask yourself whether twitter's goal is actually stopping the violence and not provoking it.

jaycroft · 5 years ago

A symbolic gesture signaling approval of the peaceful transition of power for arguably the most powerful political apparatus on earth is quite significant to a lot of Americans. It is probably considerably less interesting to people watching from the outside.

weaksauce · 5 years ago

> that of a stubborn, spoilt, petulant child

could be that and also him accidentally stoking the flames of stochastic terror.

tt433 · 5 years ago

His supporters were literally talking about that exact scenario in the replies

alsetmusic · 5 years ago

> This is the same type of conspiracies that the right is accused of having. Was there anyway that he could have announced he was boycotting the inauguration and it wouldn't be taken this way by some?

Yes. He could have accepted the results of the election and not promoted conspiracies.

tedunangst · 5 years ago

He could specifically say there will be a transition to a Biden administration, not just a "new" one, which Capitol storming types have decided means a Trump-Flynn administration, after ousting the traitor Pence. They are continuing to have these fever dreams.

Aeolun · 5 years ago

That is entirely possible. But his supporters will not read it that way.

The most powerful person on the planet should be held to a higher standard than just blating out whatever is on his mind.

umvi · 5 years ago

Yeah, I can't imagine that scenario at all. In fact, Obama publicly refusing to attend Trump's inauguration would have probably been met with thunderous applause from the "not my president" crowd.

arolihas · 5 years ago

Maybe if he had declined to attend and refused to recognize the results of the election by falsely claiming fraud and spreading misinformation? And encouraged people to storm the capitol? Maybe then it’d make sense for Obama to have been banned.

adwi · 5 years ago

Do you have a source for this? Wikipedia says he did, even more curious about changing the call sign story:

> Outgoing President George W. Bush, outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney, former presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, and former vice presidents Walter Mondale, Dan Quayle, and Al Gore, along with their respective wives, attended the inauguration...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_inauguration_of_Barack...

dragonwriter · 5 years ago

Huh. Strange that DoD has a photo of President and Mrs. Bush leaving the inauguration with President and Mrs. Obama, if President Bush wasn't there.

https://www.defense.gov/observe/photo-gallery/igphoto/200115...

cycrutchfield · 5 years ago

They are already plotting their next terrorist event for the inauguration

taurath · 5 years ago

They’re posting specific dates and plans around lots of violence in the near future. It’s around if you go looking. Not by people with low follower count. That’s why parler is getting hit by Google play and Apple

meekmockmook · 5 years ago

Why joke? Thats a viable way to do it. No social network shoild be so large that massive global events can be shaped by it's executives.

undersuit · 5 years ago

What's to stop them from confederating afterwards?

sdwa · 5 years ago

It is specifically baffling to have no opinion on Donald Trump, yes, and that is precisely orthogonal to one's opinions on the internet, Twitter, "tribes", technology, or anything that you mentioned in your comment, for that matter.

eps · 5 years ago

Even then it's next to impossible to not have an opinion on Trump.

mr_toad · 5 years ago

As someone who lives outside the US I can assure you that very few people in my country don’t have an opinion on Trump.

TT3351 · 5 years ago

What are you suggesting by "the vote didn't matter?" Just because they might believe Trump's lies about the most recent election doesn't mean their emotions are justified.

tacon · 5 years ago

The people that lived through the American Revolution would strongly disagree with you that the current situation is worse.

greedo · 5 years ago

There was a little matter of the Civil War that might deserve some of your attention.

rootusrootus · 5 years ago

> I don't think America has seen this before

I think that says more about how boring & peaceful the late twentieth century was. The number of people old enough to remember more interesting times is declining quickly.

azernik · 5 years ago

Half of the Union literally seceded because it didn't like the winner of the 1860 presidential election.

arminiusreturns · 5 years ago

The oligarchs are laughing in the background as the divide and conquer strategy is working quite well.

So many servile people ready to give up liberties here because they want to punish the other, refusing to understand the implications of how such systems will be turned on them some point in the future.

michaericalribo · 5 years ago

All? No. But some? Hell yes!

Even when ‘leftists’ protest at congress, they go through metal detectors and demonstrate peacefully—no window smashing, no theft, no overrunning security lines. Trumpists on Wednesday literally hung nooses from trees and killed a cop.

Rapzid · 5 years ago

> which are echo chambers

I mean, let's be honest here. There is a lot of good journalism in MSM; just about everything reported on from leaks and "anonymous" sources leading up to the Mueller report was later confirmed in the report or by first-hand witnesses(the matter-of-fact stuff, not necessarily the conclusions). Buutttt... CNN still has their "outrage" segments and echo chambers..

cycrutchfield · 5 years ago

Literally the biggest cable news channel in America represents their views 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. What in the world are you even going on about?

AnimalMuppet · 5 years ago

Maybe you could actually say something, instead of expecting us to guess...

timmytokyo · 5 years ago

When have we seen the loser's followers violently storm the Capitol to stop the certification of the election's votes? Never in the US.

sixothree · 5 years ago

That's too bad. They're wrong. And using violence is not the answer.

AnimalMuppet · 5 years ago

To be fair, the other half of the country believed that the previous election was thrown by Russian interference.

And to be really fair, half of the country believed neither of those things. There are plenty of people who voted for Trump who believe that he lost fair and square, and ditto Hillary voters in the previous election.

throwaway2245 · 5 years ago

> It’s about ~half the country actually believing that the election was rigged.

I think it's more accurate to say that a percentage of people believe they will benefit by repeating claims that the election was rigged.

It's difficult to truly believe that an election was rigged, by the other side, when your side was ultimately responsible for its administration.

Rapzid · 5 years ago

Half the country doesn't believe that. Source?

bcrosby95 · 5 years ago

How how the times change. Gore conceded. Then withdrew it. Then later conceded again. Up until 2000, it was pretty unprecedented. Some rather spicy events.

2020 obviously blew it all out of the water though.

rmk · 5 years ago

It's obvious that most of the people who voted for the losing side did not show up at the protest. An even smaller fraction breached the Capitol Building.

It's interesting that you say that Biden voters feel disrespected because Trump voters protested something in the way they did. When BLM protesters vandalized (mostly poor or middle-class people's) shops, do you think it was reasonable for non-BLM people (most Trump supporters) to be outraged? If not, therein lies the problem.

BTW, there were violent riots when Trump was elected president, including in Oakland, Portland etc.:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Oakland_riots https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Portland,_Oregon_riots

pnw_hazor · 5 years ago

Was that before or after many high-level Democrats and Celebrities denounced Trump and committed to resistance on Nov 3, 2015.

4+ years of no-quarter given raging against Trump has set the tone for the future of America. I don't think anyone is going to like that future.

OCASM · 5 years ago

If the Left didn't want the Right to be mean to them maybe they shouldn't have called them nazis and deplorables.

Rapzid · 5 years ago

I think both sides have a problem with assuming everyone on the other side fits a single mold. Apparently that mold fitting the more radical elements of the other side.

Actually, one of the magical things Trump did was prey on a lot of individuals individual desires while getting them to ignore all the stuff he promised to others that they don't agree with.

But anyway, just because you voted for somebody doesn't mean you agree with them on everything. That's as true for the left as it is the right.

dudul · 5 years ago

So you're basically saying that we should behave like them and wave 'fuck your feelings' flags as well.

rmk · 5 years ago

The 74 million are mostly conservatives. I don't think they are all the same, but as a group they do have at least a few defining issues that they agree on?

dang · 5 years ago

You've been using the site primarily for political battle and breaking the site guidelines repeatedly. We ban accounts that do those things, and have asked you several times in the past to stop, so I've banned this account.

If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

chefkoch · 5 years ago

Pence made clear he doesn't want to be the kingslayer.

hchz · 5 years ago

They need to balance this against the impact this would have on their long-term ability to minimize taxes for the wealthy.

hchz · 5 years ago

I believe SSBN crews would have been informed of these events by their CO over 1MC, and I'm sure COB would have his hands full censoring everybody's inbound email.

Now I need to ask my boys when they come back in...

metabagel · 5 years ago

By sending the people who participated or incited the riot to prison. Seriously, it's either that or the next coup will be successful.

greedo · 5 years ago

Re-educating people has horrible connotations of Vietnam, Modern day China, etc and really doesn't work. So the most likely way of changing people's hearts and minds is war. Germans became peace lovers really fast after their country was destroyed end to end. Same with Japan.

As an American I hope it doesn't come to that. I fear we'll end up experiencing something like the Troubles. Low grade civil war.

Pils · 5 years ago

> Clamping down is not notoriously effective.

"We find that the ban worked for Reddit. More accounts than expected discontinued using the site; those that stayed drastically decreased their hate speech usage-by at least 80%. Though many subreddits saw an influx of r/fatpeoplehate and r/C******n "migrants," those subreddits saw no significant changes in hate speech usage"[0].

I expect if Parler et. al. took similar stances against hate speech and open calls to violence, they would see similar results.

> Without a clear understanding of how a problem came to be, how can it be fixed?

You can't test a treatment without an intervention.

edit: fixed asterisks.

[0]https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3134666

blix · 5 years ago

I'm not sure it's in the Democrats' best (short-term) interest to release this pressure. Trump has galvanized support for centrist Democratic politicians at a time when they were stuggling. Consider Sanders' support in 2016.

Perhaps I am too cynical, but at this point I would not be surprised if the Democrats stoke tensions for short-term gains, like the Republicans before them. I hope this does not come to pass, because surely this fanning of the flames would end with all of us burned.

groby_b · 5 years ago

By removing the problem. If somebody tries to destroy democracy, you first remove them from the position where they could do that, and then, once the immediate danger is gone, you can look at the complex factors.

Triage applies.

closeparen · 5 years ago

Upsetting Trump’s base is not some unforeseeable or mysterious accident. “When you are used to privilege, equality feels like oppression.”

elliekelly · 5 years ago

How do you explain to and persuade people who refuse to listen or even think? At a certain point you’re just explaining into the void and have become the crazy person yourself.

You can lead a horse to water and all...

spoonjim · 5 years ago

Americans generally mean something very mild when they "clamp down." Countries like Russia really know what "clamp down" means -- you go into an area and kill or terrorize everyone who openly defies you, rinse and repeat every 20 years.

PradeetPatel · 5 years ago

It's been established that you can't fight hate with more hate. However, hate speech must be controlled in order for greater freedom of speech to flourish.

flukus · 5 years ago

That is the strategy that led to this point, needless to say it hasn't been effective and something else needs to be done. There's also plenty of historical precedent showing it to be ineffective.

gwright · 5 years ago

It is a big mistake to think this is about Trump. Trump is a symptom of the dissatisfaction with the status quo not the source. Just go back and look at the reporting about how his message resonated and lead to his election.

Your comment is a great example of how to make things worse. You are asserting that "half the country" are mindless Trump cultists. This is just another version of Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" attitude.

Resolving the divisions in the American electorate needs to be a tad bit more sophisticated than asserting that 70 million people have lost their minds and aren't worth listening to. In fact if that is the type of approach taken by the Biden administration I think things will get much, much worse.

henrikschroder · 5 years ago

> both IRA and ETA had strong geographical and cultural components to their identity, which is not true of right-wing extremists.

A funny detail is that plenty of the treasonweasels who decided to storm the Capitol also decided to document themselves doing so on social media. And since they come from all over the country, they're being identified, named, shamed, and outed by people who know them. They're being fired from their jobs. They're being arrested for their crimes.

They thought they were simply the bravest spearhead, enjoying the support of the massive silent majority of Americans. In reality, everyone is tired of their respective crazy racist uncle, and are gleefully outing them.

The internet has made it possible to surround yourself virtually with like-minded people, thinking you're one massive family. But if you're actually disconnected in reality, if you're actually surrounded by people who really don't share your views, thinking your echo chamber is representative is a massive mistake.

withinboredom · 5 years ago

It only takes a few people to inspire many. I really hope it won’t come to that, and I don’t think Trump is brave enough.

As for going up against the military, there are quite a lot of vets in that demographic.

germinalphrase · 5 years ago

The urban vs rural divide is both geographic and cultural.

dbtc · 5 years ago

I think "un-american" is different from those examples because of the history

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Un-American_Activities_C...

runarberg · 5 years ago

The harm is in exposing this toxic and racist rhetoric to my friends and family. This can be a) insulting and b) incite people we’re close to repeat and extend on this rhetoric. The further he is from the popular platform the less likely it is to happen to those close to me.

The popular platforms are full of dog whistles and memeified hate speech as people moderate them self in order to make the content more palatable for the general public and prevent being kicked of the platform. In an unmoderated dark corner of the internet that is not necessary. So arguable twitter is a terrible place for law enforcement to hunt down racists and prevent their terrorism.

dageshi · 5 years ago

Well I'd go check but the site seems to be down.

Perhaps "nasty" is the wrong word, although I do think there's an element of that. More "delusional"? That is, so divorced from what I perceive as reality that anyone not already on that path is going to be utterly confused by what people there believe, like the other conspiracy-esque sites out there.

SpaceManNabs · 5 years ago

Search for BLM and go through pages 25 through 30. I found multiple comments/posts calling or implying violence against left-leaning politics and black people.

4ggr0 · 5 years ago

https://thedonald.win/p/11RhTd8i71/by-morning-twitter-will-c...

Enough said.

4ggr0 · 5 years ago

Seems like a classic case of anecdotes vs. anecdotes, shrug

You both have your points, both are probably right :)

sdwa · 5 years ago

Sure, but the threat of fascism in any given Western nation that I know of is far greater than the threat of communism, which is rather dead.