NYT: Twitter Is Within Right To Suspend @realDonaldTrump, But Shouldn't

[Initech]

If Twitter wanted to, it would be well within its rights to suspend Donald J. Trump’s account.

After the president-elect used Twitter last week to criticize Chuck Jones, an Indiana union leader who represents workers at the Carrier company, Mr. Jones reported receiving a series of threatening phone calls from Mr. Trump’s supporters. Similarly, last year, Mr. Trump used Twitter to attack a college student who asked him a critical question at a rally; The Washington Post reported that the woman has been barraged by obscene and deranged threats ever since.

As a corporation, Twitter is under no First Amendment obligation to let Mr. Trump use the service. It gets to make its own set of speech rules within its own walls, and among those rules is a prohibition on using the service to incite harassment. Earlier this year, the company suspended several Trump supporters who appeared to run afoul of those rules. Twitter has said that its policies apply to every user.

And yet Twitter is in no position, now, to suspend @realDonaldTrump.

If you look closely at Mr. Trump’s Twitter messages, he has appeared to tack just inside the lines of the service’s rules of conduct. More than that, free speech advocates argue that Twitter’s policies ought to give great deference to political figures. Suspending Mr. Trump’s account would be censorship. Though Twitter is legally free to censor whomever it wants, it also has a duty to recognize how its actions affect the larger world.

The repercussions could be vast. As online services like Twitter become the world’s primary place for political dialogue, the rules they set up for policing political speech will have a wide-ranging impact — they could be used to ban not just billionaire presidents-elect, but also activists and dissidents across the globe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/14/technology/twitter-has-the-right-to-suspend-donald-trump-but-it-shouldnt.html

I got to say I agree with the NY Times here. Donald Trump *SHOULD* be suspended because he is going to be the next president, but Twitter should not be the one to do it. His supporters would go apeshiit.

[guillaumeb]

1. Twitter as the primary place for political dialogue?

And who made that determination? It sounds as if the NY TImes is making a case to delegitimize and diminish the rest of the media in favor of an online forum that is only accessed by a minority of citizens.

If Trump wants to communicate he can always call a press conference.

So I disagree. Let Twitter suspend his account and let Trump takes his chances with the media.

[niyad]

2. "free speech advocates argue that Twitters policies ought to give great deference to political

figures"??????? what a load of codswallop. WHY should "political figures" be given "great deference"??? really? that kind of "thinking" smacks of a dictatorship--"all hail the great leader".

[Initech]

5. Yeah big difference between Obama Tweets and Trump Tweets:

Vs:



Big difference! Maybe all the times of Trump calling the NY Times "failing" got to them?

[niyad]

3. twitter is a company, not a government institution. therefore, according to the lovers of the

"unfettered, unregulated free market", it should be able to cancel whichever accounts it pleases.

oops, sorry, folks, you forgot it works both ways, yes? and you also forgot that the whole "free speech" think is about GOVERNMENT interfering with free speech, not businesses or other people.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. Twitter COULD suspend RealDonaldTrump but

he'd just transfer to POTUS Twitter account (provided things don't go swimmingly on Monday).

[Initech]

6. Yeah you can never defeat a troll, even if that troll happens to be the next POTUS.

[MFM008]

12. Then so be it.

......

[Buns_of_Fire]

7. On the other hand, when @RealComradeTrump sends an asshole tweet,

any number of @RealOrdinaryCitizens can immediately talk right back to him (#ComradeTrump) and demonstrate what a complete asscarrot (Pathetic! Loser!) he is in front of God 'n' Everybody -- not an option at a press conference, of course.

[Initech]

9. And Trump does seem to break the first rule of social media on an almost daily basis.

Which is don't say anything that you'll regret later. And we can expect a lot of that over the next four years.

[hatrack]

8. Never interrupt your enemy when he is making mistake after mistake after mistake . . . .

Tweet on, asshole. Keep digging.

[Initech]

10. True!

We're witnessing genocide happening in Syria right now and Donald Trump is more concerned that Vanity Fair is being mean to him. And when you're in a hole, actually Donald Trump should keep digging!

[MFM008]

11. Tough shit

Let them go apeshit.
Hopefully suicidal.
I would suspend maggot in a NY minute.

[TrekLuver]

13. Twitter suspending Trashbag's account would be a public service.