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from the goose-in-one-hand-is-worth-taking-a-gander dept.
Twitter may Tag Rule-Breaking Trump Tweets:
Twitter said Thursday it could start tagging tweets from newsworthy figures such as US President Donald Trump that break its rules, while stopping short of deleting them.
The one-to-many messaging platform used extensively by Trump to fire off comments, some of them inflammatory, said it is exploring ways to add context to tweets considered to be of legitimate public interest but which violate its terms of service.
"Twitter is exploring ways to provide more context around tweets that violate our rules, but are newsworthy and in the legitimate public interest," the company said in an emailed statement.
[...]Twitter's trust and safety chief Vijaya Gadde [...] said during an on-stage interview at a Washington Post technology forum in San Francisco that Twitter was looking at ways to "put some context around it so people are aware that that content is actually a violation of our rules and it is serving a particular purpose in remaining on the platform."
Tweets that go too far, such as threatening someone with violence, would be removed no matter who posts them, according to Gadde.
The rules don't have to be followed if you are "newsworthy", but the rest of us have to abide by them. Got it.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @03:12PM (5 children)
Twitter has posted terms of service of what you will not say. Not only that, they are NOT removing Trump's posting which violate them, despite the fact the postings are in violation of them.
If I post a public bulletin board on my property and say "you can post anything you want here except discussions of breakfast cereals," and then somebody posts something there about breakfast cereal, it seems very reasonable that I can remove that posting. I'd argue that isn't censorship, and if you consider it is, then it'd be the most benign format imaginable.
I also have objections to this policy, but only because it is uneven enforcement. All the animals are equal, but some of them (like Trump) are more equal than the others (he can post violating content and not have the rules enforced against him). If Twitter had moral principal and the courage of their convictions, then they'd actually remove those violating postings. However, they are a for-profit company, and it's their platform, so it's their choice. Unless the suggestion is that we limit the freedom of this company and force them to act a certain way, in which case I'd love to know what the rule is so it can be uniformly applied to all groups (e.g. Reddit and Breitbart).
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @03:26PM (2 children)
Trump is the reason their stupid company is still alive. Before he started giving them all this free advertising, remember that they were pretty much circling the drain, spending $2 for every $1 they received in revenues.
They're trying to stay in business, so while they will institute terms of service to placate the coastal elites who would go on a SJW rage out if someone tweeted crimethink, they cannot ban Trump without putting their business at risk.
The worst thing for them would be if Trump in future put his short communications on the White House web page, or sent them out directly via Presidential text messages.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @06:00PM (1 child)
"Trump is the reason their stupid company is still alive"
How is that relevant? Does that mean the rules do not apply?
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @06:06PM
Look, idiot: Twitter makes the"rules", and they will make exceptions for whatever they think makes business sense.
(Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Friday March 29 2019, @03:35PM (1 child)
Actually, they can't. At least they can't keep that TOS and remain a PLATFORM. They can only keep it if they reclassify as a PUBLISHER.
As a publisher they can impose any editorial standards they like, make it a leftwing hugbox, Jack can knock himself out. But what he must NOT be permitted to do is remain within the legal safe harbor extended to neutral platforms. The phone company is not liable for the traffic that moves over it, because it is a platform. The New York Times is liable for what appears on its pages, paper or virtual. Jack needs to be made to choose. Choose and be damned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @09:32PM
Even if this is true, the law will be changed so they can arbitrarily remove all of the beheading videos, hate speech, or anything they dislike and still remain a platform.