Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by janrinok on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:27AM   Printer-friendly
from the It's-not-bannable-if-it's-the-president's-tweet dept.

Many Twitter users have reported threats of genocide and the use of weapons of mass destruction by one Twitterati in particular, but Twitter does not think these violate the terms of usage at Twitter. Tweet, at Mashable.

The President of the United States possibly made another threat of nuclear war on Twitter, but the company doesn't seem to think the post breaks any of its rules. Donald Trump boasted on Twitter about how his nuclear button was bigger than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's, and people are calling (again) for the president to be banned from the platform.

Folks on Twitter are asking the platform whether this violates its policy against violent threats. So far the response from Twitter has been in the form of an automated response in which Twitter says Trump's message represents "no violation of the Twitter Rules against abusive behavior."

Mashable checked, just in case:

Twitter confirmed to Mashable that "this Tweet did not violate our terms of service," referencing the Twitter Rules against violent threats and glorification of violence.

"You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people," the rules state.

So it seems that if you are going to threaten serious "physical harm, death or disease" on Twitter, be sure to include everyone by using nukes, instead of just one individual or group.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:49AM (41 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:49AM (#619098) Journal

    I dunno why I have always to defend politician Trump, but I don't see how his tweets can be likened to mr angryguy making threats to the ex. Kim likes to boast, silence would be worse.
    Now, I think NK is kept as an example of old school fascism, making fascism 2.0 look good in comparison, but if really nation were against nation, raising the fist is not a bad idea against the bully. Especially when you're bigger.

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:16PM (#619105)

      Trading threats isn't usually considered an effective or productive diplomatic tactic. But hey, when everything else has failed...

      https://www.npr.org/2018/01/03/575288560/journalist-as-u-s-retreats-from-world-stage-china-moves-to-fill-the-void [npr.org]

      China is the way to deal with North Korea but it would take a bigger miracle than the fractured Trump White House to convince China to do anything.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:27PM (2 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:27PM (#619124)

      raising the fist is not a bad idea against the bully. Especially when you're bigger.

      Everybody remember, the above advice comes from a bot [dilbert.com].

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:09PM (1 child)

        by Bot (3902) on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:09PM (#619183) Journal

        As much as I like the reassuring glow of global thermonuclear war, I still think that the bigger button propaganda on twitter has a potential to scare NK into compromising, rather than into getting glassed.

        --
        Account abandoned.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:48PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:48PM (#619332)

          Or to get other elements in NK government to overthrow Kim.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:41PM (7 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:41PM (#619129) Journal

      Various SJW's, liberals, political opponents, and assorted nut cases band together, in an attempt to silence or censor the HMFIC*. And, they are surprised that it doesn't work?

      * Head Mother Fucker In Charge - aka Commander in Chief.

      • (Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:22PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:22PM (#619189)

        a.k.a. The Lyin' King

        • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday January 08 2018, @04:02PM (2 children)

          by Freeman (732) on Monday January 08 2018, @04:02PM (#619544) Journal

          And the ones before him, kept all of their promises?

          --
          Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
          • (Score: 2) by J053 on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:12AM (1 child)

            by J053 (3532) <dakineNO@SPAMshangri-la.cx> on Tuesday January 09 2018, @01:12AM (#619796) Homepage
            You know, if all you have is a tu quoque argument, you might be better off remaining silent.
            • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday January 09 2018, @04:39PM

              by Freeman (732) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @04:39PM (#620074) Journal

              Ok, how about, look at the facts. Looks like the Jury's still out on just how many campaign promises he won't fulfill. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/trumpometer/ [politifact.com] Comparatively, Obama compromised a little over 1/4 of the time, broke his campaign promise 1/4 of the time, and kept his campaign promise just under 1/2 the time.

              --
              Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
      • (Score: 2) by meustrus on Monday January 08 2018, @03:48PM

        by meustrus (4961) on Monday January 08 2018, @03:48PM (#619537)

        Politicians have opponents, and this one's opponents are roughly 55% of the population [fivethirtyeight.com]. We live in a litigious society, as the HMFIC's business career attests to, so it's hardly surprising that his political opponents would try to use contract law to limit his power.

        --
        If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
      • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday January 08 2018, @04:55PM (1 child)

        by DeathMonkey (1380) on Monday January 08 2018, @04:55PM (#619575) Journal

        Various SJW's, liberals, political opponents, and assorted nut cases band together, in an attempt to silence or censor the HMFIC*. And, they are surprised that it doesn't work?

        Correct, random nutjobs complaining about Twitter on the internet is not newsworthy or a violation of the first amendment.

        A sitting US president trying to ban a book [washingtonpost.com] and silence critics [go.com] on the other hand....

        • (Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:09PM

          by Bot (3902) on Tuesday January 09 2018, @02:09PM (#620004) Journal

          Indeed. But the infrastructure for enabling a big gun to censor the little guy has been built before little hands went to power. Even if you blamed only the nazi rep party for that, the nazi dem party had 2 terms to at least begin to dismantle it. Instead they kept increasing control on the net. Because the agenda is one, and they take turns to implement different parts of it.
           

          --
          Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:10PM (2 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:10PM (#619149)

      I dunno why I have always to defend politician Trump

      I'm guessing you're not from the USA? The leftist establishment in total control of the media and academia has SEVERE "Trump Derangement Syndrome" and this is one of many a fever spikes.

      Everyone at the gym the day this came out (a couple days ago) was laughing their ass off at Trump's "mine's bigger" joke reply every time it came up on TV while also watching purple haired cat ladies on TV splutter and foam at the mouth in rage about it, and laughing at the cat ladies. Leftists trying to one up each other in holiness signalling is extremely unappealing to normies and what makes it comical is the leftists can't see it, like a kick me sign on their butts; aside from simply being funny, this kind of situation is how you manufacture Trump voters.

      • (Score: 1, Troll) by jmorris on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:52PM

        by jmorris (4844) on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:52PM (#619219)

        Yup, it is amazing how they can fail to get the dick joke Trump was using on Lil Rocket Man. Of course they do get it, our so called media is all kabuki theatre, virtue signaling and autistic screeching. Reeeeeeeeeeee!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @11:19AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @11:19AM (#619475)

        Are you for real?

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by VLM on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:59PM (23 children)

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 07 2018, @02:59PM (#619165)

      Now, I think NK is kept as an example of old school fascism

      Replying separately because this situation is weird:

      I worked really close with a SK for many years and heard a lot about SK culture which is pretty interesting. You could call it an extremely minor hobby of mine.

      First of all there's like three definitions of what it means to be a fascist before we even get started on the Koreans and their peculiar views of fan death and fascism and whatnot:

      1) Mere pejorative I'm further left wing that you so you're a fascist, aka every Republican party candidate since the 60s, especially Trump, anyone who isn't loudly and publicly actively racist and sexist WRT hating white men, that sort of thing. Don't mean much, but its all you'll ever see in propaganda and media. Probably no point in talking about it.

      2) Actual fascism, a strong man dictator who uses extreme force to suppress opposition while having total control of industry and commerce. Ironically this was the Soviet Union for about 70 years. Not so much now, there is no longer a continuous defined strong militaristic chain of command from Putin to the local bartender, along with the local bartender having a place in the central committee's five year plan, however small that place may have been, although that very theoretically existed in Stalin's day. For that matter every strong alpha male leader is not a fascist, consider Trump. Basically for a century or so now outside of the 30s and 40s, fascists have been "commie dictators we don't like" as opposed to the slightly more respectable "commie dictators we do like" whom we called communists. So Gorbachev was a commie because WE liked him, NK is fascist because WE dislike. Capitalization on WE because emphasize that the definition has nothing to do with them and everything to do with our fickle opinion of them. Another example, arguably Saddam Hussein was never a fascist because the trashed economy of Iraq was never really under any control at all ever, he was a dictator who killed the opposition for a long time but his culture was a mess that couldn't be controlled at all except thru his massive violence and his economy was freaking libertarian paradise anarchy although he always skimmed enough money personally to be rich.

      3) Genuine honest to god fascism. Think of FDR trying to socially engineer the country in the 30s and then nationalize all industry and railroads "for the War" in the 40s while putting the Japs in camps. Or the Clinton crime family and their antics. Or uncle Adolf, a good boy who dindu nothin wrong, in my opinion, although there are a lot of complainers who miss the point that you got to crack some eggs to make an omelette. Or "Il Duce" in Italy.

      The Koreans situation is nuanced.

      Per

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_ethnic_nationalism [wikipedia.org]

      They see themselves not as a nation, which seems to eliminate one of the pre-reqs of fascism, but as kind of a multi country race. Identical to Diaspora Jews, they see themselves superior to everyone else but happen to live in multiple countries. Their nationalism game is weak; like you'd expect from a country that somehow lost its own Civil War. Usually its very hard for both sides to lose a civil war but the Koreans found a way, BTW saying this out loud is not wise around Koreans, this whole "only country to ever lose its own civil war" thing is kinda a sore point.

      A good idea is to read "Fire in the Lake" an interesting book from the 60s about, of all things, Vietnam, explaining how Asians always try to run a millions of person scale civilization exactly like they ran a hundred person village for millennia (thousands of years; not Trump's hot wife) and unsurprisingly the plan is a disaster at scaling but because they're smart and high agency and good time preference stats, their individual quality props up a stupidly designed and run giant system. Well, NK is Vietnam is to some extent Japan its all the same mindset kinda like the whole "western civilization" thing has kinda exceeded the bounds of the country of Greece for awhile now. And the point of this is when you think Fascist you tend to think an Uncle Adolf like figure whereas what Asians do is something much more like take the good wise old chief of a hundred person farm village doing a pretty good job and put him in charge of ten million people where he will fail not because he's ever a bad guy but because you can't have a ten million person tribe government. And all Asian civilizations do it the same way, merely with varying (over time and by place) levels of success. Fascism is kind of an out of control corporation expanding a company town into a country; Asians give a farm village chief a "Peter Principle" promotion until he fails and then they promote some other farmer until they find a really lucky farmer or a really sociopathic bastard who is successful by Asian Civilization standards (pretty high on species lifetime average while also kinda bleh compared to the peak of industrial western civ)

      There's like 2 people on the internet who see NK as fascist, you and this other guy, thats about it. But its an interesting discussion.

      As a side issue the LOL-bertarians think if you ethnically cleaned the west to keep the high IQ (aka white and asian) people then we would be smart enough to live under the intelligence cost/load of a purely libertarian paradise of a culture. However they miss the point that the Asians have been trying to implement a culture like that for many centuries and they never completely fail but they never get much beyond crappy farm village stage either. To some extent the best anti-libertarian argument isn't pointing at Somalia or Africa in general; the best argument against LOLbertarianism is pointing at Asia. Most of the alt-right people have common paths and the nearly universal lol-bertarian path involves realizing that sure trying to implement utopia using Africans gets you Somalia or Detroit at best, but there's another more censored problem that trying to implement their utopia with smart Asians ends up with, well, Asia. If it weren't for the colonialist westerners, Asia would still be a backward continent of 99.99999% starving rice farmers. Even colonialist westerners who COULD "fix" Asia, COULD NOT "fix" Africa, which is another interesting lol-bertarian lesson.

      • (Score: 5, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:35PM (12 children)

        by Phoenix666 (552) on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:35PM (#619191) Journal

        I'd agree with the first definition of "fascism."

        Your second and third definitions repeat the tedious fallacy that fascism = socialism, according to the following logic:

        1. A dog has four legs.
        2. A cat also has four legs.
        3. Therefore, a dog is a cat.

        Your descriptions of East Asian political culture are quite wrong, too. First, China != Korea != Japan.

        Koreans are not identical to Diaspora Jews. There are some who were taken to Japan as slave labor by the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity Sphere, and their descendants remain there, as non-citizens. There are some who emigrated to the United States after the Korean War and political unrest in the South in the 70's and 80's. They have not scattered to the four winds as did Jews. If there's any group in Asia comparable to the Diaspora Jews, it's the overseas Chinese in ASEAN nations, whom everyone else in that region do call, "The Jews of Asia."

        Historically the Korean peninsula comprised several kingdoms, Shilla, Baekje, and Koguryo. They were first unified in the 10th century, though, for a period, and then permanently in about 1400. Their ethno-linguistic identity has been quite consistent throughout, though. Saying that they don't consider themselves a nation because they previously consisted of several kingdoms or because they've been divided since WWII is like saying the English don't consider themselves a nation because they once consisted of Wessex, Northumbria, East Anglia, Sussex, etc and the Germans don't consider themselves a nation because they too were previously many states and were also divided after WWII. In short, it's incorrect.

        Your notion of East Asian states as "villages, writ large," is quite incorrect also. Japan, Korea, and China all had sophisticated polities for thousands of years. They had national armies, they had bureaucracies. Japan had the shogunate. China had its imperial system administered by scholar-lords who attained their positions through civil service exams. Korea had its feudal system. All of those were much more complex than the "village headman" portrait you have painted.

        Modern history in East Asia has been characterized by how those places have industrialized and responded to colonial pressures from the West. Japan got with the program very quickly so they were able to mount the challenge they did in WWII. China languished because it's a large, complex country that was not able to resist colonialism as effectively as Japan. Korea was quite buffeted by events in its two larger neighbors and it's only in the last twenty years that South Korea has hit its stride economically.

        One can drill down to more detail in each of those cases, but nobody wants to read all that here. Suffice it to say, your assertion, "all Asian civilizations do it the same way, merely with varying (over time and by place) levels of success." is not supported by fact. You cannot make that generalization.

        Frankly, most of what you wrote smacks of the heritage from European colonial triumphalist historians, who pushed a teleological view of events that portrayed everything as an inevitable progression to white European supremacy. It carries an implicit assumption of racial and cultural hierarchy. It doesn't actually shed light on any of the countries and cultures you're talking about so much as illuminate where you're coming from.

        --
        Washington DC delenda est.
        • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:49PM (8 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:49PM (#619295)

          Fascism isn't socialism, but it implies socialism. You can have socialism without fascism, but you can't have fascism without socialism.

          Fascism is socialism plus nationalism.

          • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:31PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:31PM (#619308)

            Two bad two of the leading scholars of historic fascism (Roger Griffin and John Lukacs) disagree with you. In fact, the big three fascist regimes (Germany, Italy and Spain) used different systems (Dirigism, Corporatism, and Syndicalism).

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 08 2018, @03:27AM (6 children)

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday January 08 2018, @03:27AM (#619386) Journal

            They have different ideological roots in the Western canon. Socialism, of course, goes back to Karl Marx. Fascism, however, has its roots in Nietzsche.

            Go read Nietzsche. He's quite enjoyable to read, relative to Marx, and you'll instantly see the connections to fascism in his concepts like "uebermensch" and the "will to power."

            Just because socialist governments and fascist governments have totalitarian qualities does not mean they are the same. Tsarist Russia also had totalitarian qualities, but would you really call them socialist or fascist? Well, maybe you would, because you're confused by distinctions between political forms of government like the diametrical opposites socialism and fascism, but nobody else would.

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday January 08 2018, @08:34AM (4 children)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday January 08 2018, @08:34AM (#619459) Journal

              Modded informative, because your previous post is already modded as high as it can go. Thank you for that post. In a half-assed defense of some of the ignorance spouted by our fellow Americans, the east is pretty damned complicated. We are brought up through a school system that drums Western culture into us, and ignores most of Easter, African, and South American culture. We know diddly about Arabia, or the nations of Asia, or the history of Africa or South America because they just aren't important to our capitalism. The far east probably suffers most from that attitude, because there are several different very complex cultures there. Arabia is pretty simple, in comparison, and damned few Americans understand anything about Arabia. As for the other two continents - no one gives the smallest damn, it seems.

              It's shameful, really.

              And, I have to plead guilty, to some extent. I know far less about Korea than I know about either China or Japan. I was surprised in recent years to learn of empires, built and ruined, to the south of China. Vietnam and Cambodia are the primary examples. All my life, I thought China was the center of power, and all of civilization in that part of Asia, throughout history. Wow - empires. And, the average American never heard of any of it.

              Yep, shameful.

              • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:46PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:46PM (#619509)

                You'd never know the US is full of ignorant people with they way they talk online. VLM's writing and even your is often from a stance of absolute authority, but the percentages fail to back it up. The best part of reading this site is getting to see the warped rationales being used. You runaway are one of the better posters with the capacity for self-reflection so don't take this too personally.

              • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 08 2018, @08:47PM (2 children)

                by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday January 08 2018, @08:47PM (#619690) Journal

                It's partly the legacy of post-WWII education and priorities. We had invested so much time and energy in liberating and then rebuilding Europe that it dominated American perception of the Rest of the World. Japan was too far away to think about beyond superficial stereotypes like samurai and geishas. Thanks to the Cold War, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and all the rest were reduced to a simple struggle against global communism. Nobody had to think much about them or their perspectives.

                We don't live in that world anymore.

                Even so, when you have provided context on the Middle East by pointing out Turks are not Arabs, and the like, it's still news to most people in America (and, let's be honest, most Europeans, because despite what they'd have everyone else believe they are mostly quite parochial, too). A significant gap has opened between what the world actually is, and what matters in it, and what the average American believes it is, and what about it they believe matters.

                On a certain level, how much does it matter that we don't, as a people, understand North Korea or Kim Jong Un? What's to know? We're gonna wind up nuking the guy to kingdom come anyway, and calling it a day. But for those who are curious, for whatever reason, a few good places to start are these:

                1. Korea historically has been smacked around by its more powerful neighbors China and Japan. They escaped Chinese overlords only to be colonized by the Japanese. Then their country was divided by Russia and the United States. They've had to constantly fight to survive individually and as a people. They're tough, resilient people, because they've had to be. If Americans are familiar with Poland's history, sandwiched between the Russians and the Germans, then it's a bit of a window into Korea.

                2. Juche [wikipedia.org]. It roughly translates to "self-reliance," and it is central to North Korean political thought in the way that Manifest Destiny is fundamental to American political thought. Juche was formulated by Kim Il Sung, who was fighting Japanese colonization while in exile in Manchuria and Siberia. He founded North Korea, of course, and ruled it until his death. Kim Jong Il and Kim Jong Un are his son and grandson, respectively, and they have continued the policies of Juche. That's why it's so hard for China to control North Korea.

                3. Read Bruce Cumings's The Korean War: A History [amazon.com]. He leans left and that cast on his work is irritating, but it's a good place to start understanding modern Korean history for the North and the South.

                --
                Washington DC delenda est.
                • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:05PM (1 child)

                  by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:05PM (#619743)

                  Korea historically has been smacked around by its more powerful neighbors China and Japan.

                  This is wrong. China indeed had been the 800lb gorilla since the ancient time, and in the earlier days (the first millenium AC) Koreans went toe-to-toe with them, although eventually they became a satelite state in the sinosphere.

                  Japan, on the other hand, was a non-factor, irrrelevant in the geopolitics of the region, until they finally managed to unify under a shogunate in the 17th century.

                  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:13PM

                    by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @10:13PM (#619746)

                    China indeed had been the 800lb gorilla since the ancient time

                    More specifically, China had been the 800lb gorilla in East Asia since the Han Dynasty. The dominant ethnic group in China is Han Chinese, and the name "Han" derives from the Han Dynasty, the first Chinese imperial dynasty that expended the Chinese territory somewhat similar to today and established Chinese part of the ancient Silk Road trading route.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @05:37PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @05:37PM (#619591)

              I would like to point out that Nietzsche was not a fascist himself and thought the people who were were misinterpreting his works (sometimes deliberately). He even foresaw fascism and argued against it, e.g. Ecce Homo's "Why I write such Good Books," The Case of Wagner and The Joyful Science. An overview is provided by Bastille (sp?) of the disconnect and how one doesn't imply the other, which is probably one of his most famous writings.

        • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday January 08 2018, @06:59AM (2 children)

          by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday January 08 2018, @06:59AM (#619440) Homepage Journal

          Very aptly said. In your last paragraph, you so very well explain what is now called orientalism [wikipedia.org].

          • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 08 2018, @08:57PM (1 child)

            by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday January 08 2018, @08:57PM (#619696) Journal

            Thanks. Yes, that's it. Edward Said, the guy who coined that term, was onto something, because his concept stuck. On the other hand, at the same time he was criticizing the West for reducing the Orient to simple archetypes and forms, he was doing the same thing to the West. It's a little understandable because he's an ardent Palestinian activist with good reason to be pissed off at the West. But, it must be said, the guy is a pompous dick. He was buddies with the professor I worked for in college, Marvin Zonis, who was an Iran scholar, and I had the distinct displeasure of dealing with Said at several conferences.

            --
            Washington DC delenda est.
            • (Score: 2) by cubancigar11 on Monday January 08 2018, @09:59PM

              by cubancigar11 (330) on Monday January 08 2018, @09:59PM (#619739) Homepage Journal

              He is a sociologist. I have done a side degree in sociologist. They are not STEM people, and that gives me a lot of context to deal with them. How much power they actually wield and how much they should, that probably can be debated.

      • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Bot on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:41PM

        by Bot (3902) on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:41PM (#619197) Journal

        I used fascism in the literal Roman fascio sense, which indeed makes commies fascists. All features commies think are differentiating them from fascism, hate of rich guys, populism, revolution, end of revealed religion, had been integral in early mussolinian fascism. Two barking dogs are better than one to steer the sheep wherever you want, and let the dogs fight each other sometimes so they keep in shape.

        It's old school "society made for the individual" vs "individual made for society" fascism. Many variation of the latter, no surviving political expression of the former, unless possibly some city states and iceland.

        --
        Account abandoned.
      • (Score: 5, Informative) by LoRdTAW on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:37PM (8 children)

        by LoRdTAW (3755) on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:37PM (#619236) Journal

        Your big mistake is labeling Trump am alpha male. He isn't. He's the spoiled, big mouthed son of a business man. He's that guy at the bar who constantly talks shit and acts like a dick because who's gonna fuck with me until he gets his clock cleaned by a real man. Putin otoh is actually alpha.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 08 2018, @12:34AM (6 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 08 2018, @12:34AM (#619342) Homepage Journal

          Yeah, see, that tells me you don't have a clue what an alpha male actually is.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:18AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:18AM (#619364)

            I'll have to put in a second vote for Putin. He just has more sex appeal. Age has treated Putin a lot better than Trump. (Though when they were younger, Putin was kind of a goober, and Trump was not quite pretty boy.)

            One of these leaders also seems like he would know how to treat a lady, while the other is… eech… better wear chainmail undies if it's necessary to be in the same building as him.

          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by LoRdTAW on Monday January 08 2018, @02:43AM (3 children)

            by LoRdTAW (3755) on Monday January 08 2018, @02:43AM (#619374) Journal

            So how would you compare a pudgy ex coke head party boy business man to a black belt ex high ranking KGB agent who is also an avid outdoorsman (basically the Russian James Bond)?

            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 08 2018, @02:55AM (2 children)

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 08 2018, @02:55AM (#619378) Homepage Journal

              More or less like that. It's plenty easy to do without redefining words.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:49PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:49PM (#619510)

                Well the whole alpha concept is pretty flawed from what I hear, modern research found a lot more info on canine social structures. Please enlighten us as to what variation you are referring to.

                • (Score: 0, Flamebait) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday January 08 2018, @08:02PM

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday January 08 2018, @08:02PM (#619661) Homepage Journal

                  Let's just go with their defining aspect for simplicity's sake: alphas are dominant. And before some whiny bitch of a beta who doesn't own a dictionary or a vocabulary starts crying, dominant is not the same as domineering.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:45AM

          by realDonaldTrump (6614) on Thursday January 18 2018, @05:45AM (#624027) Homepage Journal

          You see guys fighting in a bar, those are DUMB guys. They drank too much and they let themselves get carried away, over something that doesn't matter. Probably over something that doesn't matter at all. I'll tell you, you'll never see me in that situation. My brother told me to never touch alcohol, and I never have. I saw what it did to him, it destroyed him. And I'm not dumb.

          You like President Putin, OK. A lot of people like him. He's very powerful, Russia is a very powerful country. And he's not just the president, he's more than that. He's becoming a dictator. Do you follow @MedvedevRussiaE [twitter.com], do you know who Dmitry Medvedev is? He's the prime minister of Russia. A few years ago, he was the president of Russia, while Vladimir Putin was the prime minister. You probably didn't know that. Hardly anybody knows, and nobody cares about Dmitry. Because everyone knows Vladimir is in charge. And he totally, totally dominates Dmitry. If anyone knows about Dmitry, they feel sorry for him. Or they just laugh at him. Vladimir Putin is becoming a dictator. And Medvedev is just a prop. In some places, the president is a very powerful office. Or the prime minister is a very powerful office. In Russia they're very powerful when Putin is in them. And they're nothing when Medvedev is in them.

          Mike Huckabee, have you ever heard of him? He was the governor of Arkansas for a long time. The same job where President Bill Clinton made a name for himself. Mike wanted to be president too, but he failed twice. He even won the Iowa primary, the first time. But when I ran against him, he lost very badly. And now I have his daughter, she's my press secretary. She'll say anything to make me look good. And she'll do anything I tell her to. She's plain looking, but totally, totally submissive. It's a pretty picture, to see her on her knees. I totally, totally dominate that woman. And nobody thinks, or cares, about her father any more. If anyone remembers him, they feel sorry for the guy. Or they laugh at him.

          Vladimir Putin has one of the biggest & most powerful nuclear arsenals. Maybe the biggest & most powerful. Or maybe the second. Because my Nuclear Button is also VERY BIG & VERY POWERFUL. It can do the job, believe me. There's no problem there. Going against Russia or anybody. Maybe Vladimir's is a little bigger, it doesn't matter. And nobody else's comes close. And I'm upgrading my arsenal, it's going to be a MASSIVE upgrade. A lot of people worry about Little Rocket Man. I feel sorry for him. And I laugh at him. His rockets are getting bigger all the time, but he still has trouble getting them up. Did you see, he blasted his own city, he made a mess in Tokchon with his rocket. Not even a big mess, it left a little spot. His rockets just aren't big enough. And his bombs don't make much of a bang. He says he has a hydrogen bomb, he says he tested a hydrogen bomb. I don't think so. Many people who know about nuclear don't think so. If it was a hydrogen bomb, it was the smallest hydrogen bomb ever.

          A lot of people admire Vladimir because he's amazingly rich. Some people think he's the richest person this world has ever seen. Richer than crooked Jeff Bezos. When you're the president of Russia, you can make a lot of money. Unless you're Dmitry Medvedev. Ha ha! And when you're the president of the United States of America you can make a lot of money too. But you're not. I am.

    • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:48PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:48PM (#619293)

      raising the fist is not a bad idea against the bully. Especially when you're bigger.

      Kim isn't the schoolyard bully, Don is. Kim's just the spoiled, ill mannered rich brat.

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:44PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:44PM (#619312) Journal

      I dunno why I have always to defend politician Trump, but I don't see how his tweets can be likened to mr angryguy making threats to the ex.

      Of course not, it would require a certain degree of maturity.
      Mr. Agent Orange stopped at the age of the Angry Kid [wikipedia.org] with Tourette [youtube.com]

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by crafoo on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:22PM (2 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:22PM (#619110)

    Twitter has no credibility. I frankly don't give a single shit what they think is acceptable or not. Their systems and moderators deserve nothing more than weaponized shitposting neural net farms.

    • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:57PM (1 child)

      by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday January 07 2018, @06:57PM (#619239) Homepage

      This is the only post in the discussion worth responding to. If I were president, with respect to Twitter, I'd be saying the exact goddamn shit Trump is.

      Remember, North Korea also had their moment -- they called Trump a "dotard," and in the process educated the entire world populace that "dotard" is actually a word. Trash-talk is one of the greatest things humanity has ever invented. I learned the art of trash-talk the right way, through sports, but nowadays even dick-kneading nerds know it through their headsets and online X-Box matches.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @03:08AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @03:08AM (#619381)

        > If I were president, with respect to Twitter, I'd be saying the exact goddamn shit Trump is.

        And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the problem. Donald Trump is saying the exact goddamn shit that Ethanol-fueled would if *he* was president.

  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:34PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:34PM (#619115)

    "You may not make specific threats of violence"

    You may not because the state has a monopoly on violence. Reciprocal threats of violence are not held to the same standard in law, just as self defence must always be entirely lawful. For the president of the US to respond in-kind to threats by a hostile nation should be legal on any platform.

    Twitter's rules are silly, a threat must be credible to be actionable in law. Even obvious attempts at humor; Like stating I'm going to assail Twitter's CEO with a baguette while dressed as the statue of liberty, standing on one leg while singing the Star Spangled Banner are verboten under totalitarian Twitter policy. This is why Twitter and FaceBook are doomed to failure.

    • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @12:49PM (#619118)

      >I'm going to assail Twitter's CEO with a baguette while dressed as the statue of liberty, standing on one leg while singing the Star Spangled Banner

      wth, that was MY OWN plan!

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:17PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @01:17PM (#619121)

    How many times do you need to hear it? Rules are for you and me, not them.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:23PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:23PM (#619171)

    "You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people," the rules state.

    Saying your gun is bigger is not a specific threat. A specific threat is - I'm going to kill you and your family tomorrow with my bigger gun.

    I'm far from a Trump supporter. I think he's dangerous and bad for the USA and the world but BS like this is not helping.

    And if any of you think he's unstable, how does BS like this even help? From the outside it sure seems to me "both sides" are mostly a bunch of retards.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:46PM (1 child)

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday January 07 2018, @03:46PM (#619179) Homepage Journal

      Yup. Nothing to see here but the butthurt regressive left being badly in need of a dictionary.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:55PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:55PM (#619513)

        I'll take clickbait news of trump over the butthurt trump supporters that still can't go a day without mentioning Clinton or emails. We get it, this place is a breeding nest for RWNJs and assorted libertarians who take too much joy in their freedom to keep their heads way up in their butts. Perhaps if tump hadn't tried to literally destroy freedom of the press, maybe if he didn't lie 24/7, maybe if wasn't spear heading the most regressive regime in a long time, just maybe he would be treated better.

    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday January 08 2018, @09:17PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday January 08 2018, @09:17PM (#619709) Journal

      Saying your gun is bigger is not a specific threat.

      What? Of course it is. Remember this one: “Our arrows will block out the sun?" That's what Xerxes said to Leonidas, and now classics majors thrill to it and Leonidas's brave reply, “Then we shall have our battle in the shade!” It's the same thing as saying, "My gun is bigger than your gun."

      how does BS like this even help?

      Well, for one thing it makes the consequences crystal clear for Kim Jong Un if he continues on the course he's on. It also makes it crystal clear for China what will happen to their junkyard dog if they don't control him. It makes things crystal clear for our allies in the region and elsewhere that America will protect them against the nuclear threat from North Korea.

      Maybe you're too young to remember the run-up to the Gulf War. A similar escalation of threats preceded it, with Saddam defiant and George Bush (Sr) telling him Iraqi forces must withdraw from Kuwait or be forcibly expelled. Saddam, of course, thought that the weak Americans were bluffing, because Americans are actually pussies who are all talk and no action. Except. Except the American military surgically, quickly dismantled the largest military in the Middle East without suffering many casualties itself. It was a large, powerful Third World army that does not look too different from North Korea's, incidentally.

      A similar chain of events preceded the invasion of Afghanistan after 9/11. The American government demanded Afghanistan turn over Osama bin Laden, and the Taliban government responded with cheek about how they couldn't do that because he was their guest, and Islam demands you defend a guest against infidels with your life or some nonsense like that. And, as we all know, the American government handily whacked the Taliban and reduced them very quickly and drove them out of the country. And that's after all the "experts" were pissing and moaning on and on on every talk show and press circle jerk about how that was a baaaad idea because Afghanistan is "The Graveyard of Empires."

      In short, the prelude to military action has pretty consistently consisted of an escalating exchange of threats, with the American military, which is really pretty good and well trained and sophisticated and well-equipped, summarily dispatching the opponents that talking heads moan on and on about.

      If I were Kim Jong Un, and China, I would think about that consistent record very seriously and figure out a way out of the situation that does not result in getting whacked by the American military.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:18PM (8 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:18PM (#619187)

    The real question is why the US has an idiot as a president.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:25PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:25PM (#619190)

      They have the government they deserve.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:36PM (4 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:36PM (#619192)

        They have the government they deserve.

        The majority of the United States did NOT vote for the individual in office currently. Remember that.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:48PM (3 children)

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:48PM (#619260)

          That's irrelevant. Every nation gets the government it deserves, regardless of the political process used to select the leaders.

          • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:13PM (2 children)

            by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 07 2018, @10:13PM (#619303) Journal

            Every nation gets the government it deserves,

            Stalin's victims killed by the government they deserved?
            Tienanmen square victims killed by the government they deserved?

            I am not sure I agree with your dogmatism here. Sure, the USA has a pretty poor record of late picking Federal leaders, but I don't think that means that "every nation gets the government it deserves."

            • (Score: 3, Informative) by Grishnakh on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:02PM (1 child)

              by Grishnakh (2831) on Sunday January 07 2018, @11:02PM (#619317)

              You're looking at it wrong, because you're looking at individuals rather than a collective. Do the black people shot in the back by cops in the US deserve that? Of course not. But collectively, as a nation, we get the government we deserve: nations where the people do whatever it is that's necessary to create a better government in fact get a better government, which provides benefits for all, and nations where the people fail to do that, and instead allow corruption or despotism, get a government that makes them miserable overall, and gives them a much lower standard of living. What can any individual do to get a government they think they deserve? That's unknown, and surely is different for every situation, and there's an infinite possibility of actions anyway, but the gist of this is that nations that have better governments generally don't have them by accident or random chance; these governments and societies are a product of the collective actions of the people living there over the lifetime of the nation. Of course, there are some caveats and exceptions: people in a small peaceful country that gets invaded and occupied by some powerful imperialist nation can't really be blamed for that, and there are environmental and other external factors at play too, but overall if a nation's people really want to build a good, effective government that works best for them given their current circumstances (location, resources, etc.), the only thing keeping them from that is themselves.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:58PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 08 2018, @02:58PM (#619514)

                Small groups have been known to seize power, riding on the waves of ignorance. Saying people get the government they deserve is just a new catch phrase that allows the blue to be placed on the group rather than the bad actors whoade the choices. Scapegoatism,and we've had more than enough of that!!

      • (Score: 4, Insightful) by leftover on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:45PM

        by leftover (2448) on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:45PM (#619199)

        Also, none but a tiny few controlled who appeared on the ballots.

        --
        Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @09:53PM (#619297)

      Obama is running around the world talking to foreign leaders, but that doesn't make him out president. He'd just violating the Logan Act. We got rid of that idiot a year ago.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:37PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:37PM (#619193)

    The US has threatened thermonuclear war on enemies for many decades. Do you think Twitter is in a position to stop this?

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:37PM (1 child)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:37PM (#619194) Journal

    All of this nonsense is a sideshow issue not related to anything in reality.

    Trump a bully? Not at issue.
    Trump dumb as a bucket of used rocks? Not at issue.
    Trump obsessed with his crowd/ratings/nuclear button/penis size being perceived as larger than others'? Not at issue.
    Trump making threats in violation of TOS? Not. At. Issue.

    How do we know?

    The President of the United States possibly made another threat of nuclear war

    Because if a statement is so meaningless (a Trump specialty) that you can't say outright that it's a threat, just be puzzled and say it's "possibly" a threat, then that doesn't count. Only actual threats count as TOS violations of any policy against threats.

    If the TOS prevented incoherent ranting that could possibly interpreted as a threat, or not, or whatever, then there would be some issue here.

    There is not.

    • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:33PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @05:33PM (#619210)

      A threat would be something like, "I will launch nukes on 8PM UTC, unless you allow nuclear inspectors." Most statements short of that are just hot air.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by leftover on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:48PM

    by leftover (2448) on Sunday January 07 2018, @04:48PM (#619200)

    This tweet did not make any threat at all. None. Any twit who was triggered apparently didn't bother to actually read it. They can just STFU.

    --
    Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:52PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 07 2018, @07:52PM (#619262)

    ...when the gov you're incorporated with requires it to survive.

  • (Score: 2) by BK on Monday January 08 2018, @12:04AM

    by BK (4868) on Monday January 08 2018, @12:04AM (#619336)

    Twitter, and social media in general, has a problem. Twitter in this case. But also the others like face***k and you*u** and many others.

    They all got their start, to some degree, as a platform for free(ish) speech. They took all comers and published anything as long as it wasn't actually illegal (in California). The content was the responsibility of the poster and did not need to be pre-approved. Hell, THIS SITE [soylentnews.org] relies on that model.

    We praised them when they facilitated communication among revolutionaries in north Africa. I suppose we can thank them for Libya?

    But then the bigs gave in to certain MAFIAA-like rent seekers and began trying to control the content. And increasingly to other legal jurisdictions with contradictory laws. They actually exert control of the content they allow to be published while asserting that they shouldn't be accountable for some/most/all/any of the bad things.

    Governments, sensing that they can (the moral absolute having been surrendered...), now want to ban radical or incendiary posts and videos and whatnot. Sure, it's just political speech by unpopular folks who publicly hate 'brown folks' (their name is Neo... something) and by religious-political pedophiles [wikipedia.org] (err... Muslims?), but 'not-at-all-fascist' western democracies are working to ban political speech while pretending to advocate 'free speech'.

    And now enter the SJWs. They pressure advertisers to not allow their adds to appear next to unpopular speech (unpopular with SJWs...)... and of course, the bigs fold.

    But they have a problem. Trump and co. are unpopular with those SJWs, but could regulate them into oblivion simply by noticing that they now really DO control the content on their sites. Imagine if they could be sued every time someone was offended by a tweet or a cat video! Worse, they want to still be able to pretend to not control content in other jurisdictions, and they want the US Government to back that position.

    So they have to let Trump do what he wants. They can pretend that by letting Trump speak that they still support the idea of free speech to resist unworkable laws. Maybe.

    --
    ...but you HAVE heard of me.
  • (Score: 3, Informative) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday January 08 2018, @02:23AM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Monday January 08 2018, @02:23AM (#619368) Homepage Journal

    Therefore, provided we exercise appropriate radiological precautions, my and my fellow physicists have the right under the Second Amendment to possess nuclear weapons.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 2) by BK on Monday January 08 2018, @06:24AM (1 child)

      by BK (4868) on Monday January 08 2018, @06:24AM (#619434)

      Well, at that level, can't one argue that all weapons are nuclear?

      --
      ...but you HAVE heard of me.
      • (Score: 3, Funny) by fyngyrz on Monday January 08 2018, @06:33AM

        by fyngyrz (6567) on Monday January 08 2018, @06:33AM (#619435) Journal

        Well, at that level, can't one argue that all weapons are nuclear?

        This remark strikes me as possessing particles of truth.

  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Monday January 08 2018, @03:46AM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Monday January 08 2018, @03:46AM (#619390)

    Twitter confirmed to Mashable that "this Tweet did not violate our terms of service," referencing the Twitter Rules against violent threats and glorification of violence.

    Referencing the button size brag, Twitter clarified the ostensible violation with "Pics or it didn't happen."

(1)