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The President of the United States of America lost the crucial ability to Tweet for an 11 minute timespan on Thursday (Nov. 2), following the temporary deactivation of his Twitter account by a Twitter employee who was being let go by the company. The incident has raised questions about the safeguards in place for high-profile Twitter users:
This is the way the world ends: not with a bang but a deleted Twitter account. At least, so it appeared for 11 minutes Thursday evening, when visitors to President Trump's personal account, @realDonaldTrump, were informed that there was no such thing.
[...] Amid a presidency that has seemed, at times, to be conducted primarily in 140-character pieces, this was a seismic event — and what was left of Twitter erupted. It was a raucous, modern-day town-square gathering of the sort not seen since ... well, since five months ago, when Mr. Trump coined a new word in the middle of the night.
[...] The answer, revealed three hours later, was something straight out of "Office Space." After saying in an initial statement that the account had been "inadvertently deactivated due to human error by a Twitter employee," Twitter announced that a rogue customer support worker had done it on his or her last day at the company.
Previously: Twitter Shadowbans Republican Frontrunner
Twitter Co-founder: I'm Sorry if We Made Trump's Presidency Possible
Similar submissions also came from martyb and Phoenix666.
Original Submission #1 Original Submission #2 Original Submission #3
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @04:24PM (10 children)
Just a couple days ago:
Trump is feeding koi fish with the prime minister of Japan. It's some sort of ceremony. They both had boxes of fish food pellets, with spoons to serve the fish.
What you saw on CNN was that the prime minister fed fish with a spoon, and then Trump turned his box upside down to dump the food. This was really rude and inappropriate, causing some sort of international incident.
What actually happened, as you can see from video of the full event, is that Trump followed the prime minister's example. They both spooned out food, then both dumped the remaining food. The prime minister dumped first.
Being a fan of Trump breaking traditions, I actually like the fake news version better, but let's be clear on this: it is fake news, and fake news is a serious problem. CNN distorts most stories, even non-political ones. Stories involving Trump are always distorted to make him look bad. If you think he is bad, it could be because all you see is fake news.
Better news can be had on OAN, a.k.a. OANN. Some people can get it on cable. There is a cheap app that just plays the video (not spyware like CNN has) and I guess there is always the web site at http://www.oann.com/ [oann.com]
But anyway, the twitter account is extremely important due to the absurdly dishonest media. A company willing to lie about fish feeding just to make the president look bad is not a company you can trust. Ask yourself, what other lies have you been fed? It's probably a whole box full!
(Score: 5, Informative) by DannyB on Wednesday November 08 2017, @04:41PM (3 children)
I disagree.
Trump has FoxNews at his beck and call. They will publish anything he wants to say.
Trump has an official press mouthpiece. And the press line up to be in the room to report what is said. It gets play on cable channels and YouTube. You can see and hear what is the official position of the Trump administration.
Trump already has a louder megaphone that almost anyone on the entire planet. Twitter is not that important. Twitter is merely a symptom of his mental instability and inability to show any kind of restraint in what he says. He uses Twitter to throw his own people under the bus. Undermine his own administration's policies. He seems unable to recognize that his use of Twitter hurts his own cause.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @07:10PM (2 children)
Fox seriously opposed Trump in the primary. Since then, Fox has grudgingly accepted that Trump is in fact the president.
Seeing as Trump is president, every news organization really ought to publish what he has to say. They did it for Obama.
Fox is much less to the right than it used to be. The leadership has changed. Strong and determined leadership is required to keep a news source from being far-left when it has to depend on employees who are journalists hired in New York. The new leadership isn't fighting that fight.
Proper comparisons, like the academic one done at Harvard a few years back, put Fox just a tad right of center and put all the other major companies pretty far to the left. When you compare news sources with the views of actual Americas (including rural ones) you find that there really isn't much conservative news. The only big-name one, sort of, is Breitbart. That's it. With Fox slipping left, it may well be exactly center by now.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday November 08 2017, @09:59PM (1 child)
While I have been surprised at some honesty coming out of Fox News in recent months, I still have to say: Nope. Not even close yet. But certainly closer to center.
Apparently President Hillary Clinton should be locked up . . . . because . . . if you haven't heard . . . . her emails!
Groan / Sigh
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 09 2017, @04:15PM
If it looks far-right, then I have to wonder about your standard.
Comparing against the other media isn't the correct standard. The appropriate standard is the views of the American people.
If you happen to live in the wrong place, your opinion of the views of the American people will be skewed.
Skewing could be: You live on the west coast or in Hawaii. You live in a New England state, in DC, or somewhere between. You live or work in a city of over 250,000 people. You are at a college. All your friends are non-white. All your friends are female. All your friends are LGBT. All your friends are immigrants. All your friends are non-English speakers. (etc.)
By such a skewed standard, Fox may be on the right. Such a skewed standard is about as useful as the standard of people found at an NRA convention.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:10PM (5 children)
But anyway, the twitter account is extremely important due to the absurdly dishonest media. A company willing to lie about fish feeding just to make the president look bad is not a company you can trust. Ask yourself, what other lies have you been fed?
But you're willing to trust Twitter?
(Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:20PM (2 children)
and OAN, as "better news" [wikipedia.org]?
Methinks the AC isn't a neutral observer of objectivity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:36PM (1 child)
You're assuming Wikipedia is unbiased. It never has been. Who has time to dedicate to it? This population is different from the general population.
Let me put it this way: any source that incorrectly reported the koi fish feeding is fake news. OAN is not fake news.
It's time you broke out of your bubble.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:44PM
I watched OAN many times. Its conservative pro-R pro-Trump slant is obvious and undeniable.
I give them credit for wider reporting than many "obsessive" channels. That doesn't change their bias.
You can attack Wikipedia all you want when you don't like what it says, but remember that the right wing, especially the owner of the channel, has full-time people paid to present their side of the story. Saying that OAN is conservative and pro-Trump, on one of the most visible platforms on the net, would get smacked down quickly if it was against their wishes.
Let's talk about your bubble.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @05:31PM (1 child)
So far, we have yet to catch Twitter editing posts or posting on behalf of users. (we did catch reddit doing that)
Twitter does selectively censor right/conservative/republican opinions and the people who spread those ideas.
A major method is to hide posts for a few weeks. Conservative user X, with a small audience, posts something. Unimportant users can see it immediately. Conservative user Y, with a huge audience, won't see the post for several weeks. It won't be offered, and if they specifically seek it out they will get an unhelpful generic message like "This tweet is unavailable.". Twitter's intent is obviously to tamp down the fire of opinion, preventing the spread of opinions that offend Twitter's San Francisco employees.
People also lose accounts, get forced to delete tweets, etc.
Particularly troubling aspects of the censorship is that it is mostly hidden, yet right/conservative/republican users are aware of it. This causes self-censorship and makes all complaints sound like paranoid unjustified conspiracy theories.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 08 2017, @07:46PM
Lol, this guy thinks Twitter employees are running the show!
How about we simply move on to decentralized systems, this idea of letting some corporation control what information you get is terrible! All the social networks are tracking and controlling what their users see. The only way out is to decentralize.