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posted by martyb on Wednesday April 27 2016, @01:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the is-a-Trump-tweet-called-a-Treet? dept.

You were warned. Now it begins.

Since the implementation of Twitter's new algorithmic timeline back in February of this year, conservatives, libertarians and anti-establishment dissidents alike have been waiting for the social media platform to interfere in the current U.S. election cycle. Now it seems that there is clear evidence of Twitter censoring the current Republican front-runner, Donald Trump.

A tweet sent from Trump's account at 3:04 PM EDT yesterday is not visible from his timeline, even when showing "Tweets and replies." That message included a video wherein Trump declared that "the establishment and special interests are absolutely killing our country."At the time of this writing, the tweet is still publicly accessible via a direct link and thus has not been deleted either by Twitter or by someone operating on the Trump account.

This archive.is link has a copy of the timeline taken before this article was published which clearly shows the tweet not appearing where it should be — between a tweet sent at 12:10 PM EDT and one sent at 3:27 PM EDT; it is possible that the tweet may be reintroduced to the timeline in order to hide the manipulation.

Today it's one Trump tweet, tomorrow it will be you.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:20AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:20AM (#337817) Journal

    Twitter is acting in the public sphere using public resources.

    'scuse me, can you please name/list what public resources Twitter is using?

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:36AM

    by hemocyanin (186) on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:36AM (#337821) Journal

    Telecommunications lines strung up through numerous publicly funded rights of way, electricity to power it all, much of which is public utility, public airwaves used for wireless communications -- those three off the top of my head are huge.

    Then of course it is a virtual quasi-public space and like real quasi-public spaces, it doesn't get to be a total dick just because it wants to.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday April 27 2016, @07:07AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 27 2016, @07:07AM (#337827) Journal

      Telecommunications lines strung up through numerous publicly funded rights of way, electricity to power it all, much of which is public utility, public airwaves used for wireless communications -- those three off the top of my head are huge.

      Sorry, but no.
      The telecommunication lines and public airwaves are not used by Twitter, they are used by the Twitter's users to get to Twitter.

      Electricity lines are not in the ownership of Twitter, it is the owner of the power grid segment that is using the public space to deliver energy to however occupies that space (if Twitter moves out of the premisses and xhamster moves in, nothing changes with the power network: its as quiet and publicly safe and legal as before). Don't even try suggesting we should cut the power to any company that does shoddy things, you may be surprised how many small business operators you'd close down.

      Then of course it is a virtual quasi-public space and like real quasi-public spaces, it doesn't get to be a total dick just because it wants to.

      Oh, come on, are you serious? You equate the "virtual world" of the Internet with real public space?
      I mean... what?... you'll next tell me porn should be banned on the Internet on the grounds that pornography in public places is illegal?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 27 2016, @01:00PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 27 2016, @01:00PM (#337913)

    The American government controlled DNS system. The American copyright and trademark system. Also the limited regulated resource of ipv4 addresses.

    Does that sound nickel and dime foolish? Yeah, thats what al capone said when they sent him to prison for income tax anomalies. Did he still get put in the slammer? Uh, yeah! So how trivial and foolish is it then, really?

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 27 2016, @02:52PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 27 2016, @02:52PM (#337964) Journal

      IPv4 - OK, maybe in the same way the airwaves are "public property" (even if the airwaves are based on a constraint imposed by physical laws while IPv4 is rather an "artificial scarcity" caused by "32-bits should be enough for everybody")

      DNS - mmmaybe. There aren't no limits to it (like in the case of physical public property) and the costs of maintaining the infrastructure are paid anyway by the domain name "owners". But let's say is "public property"

      But... isn't calling copyright and trademark "resources" a little bit of a stretch? Would you care to elaborate on this?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2016, @02:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2016, @02:48PM (#337961)

    'scuse me, can you please name/list what public resources Twitter is using?

    Copyrighted works, posted by users, and granted governmental immunity to host said copyrighted works under the DMCA, but only so long as Twitter acts as a common carrier for the user generated content and does not introduce political or ideological bias, or otherwise editorialize the content. That's the very real contract that Twitter has with the public right now. If they want to renege on their end of the deal, then they can. However, without the DMCA safe harbor provisions Twitter can be held directly liable for copyright infringing content that their users post. I'm sure there are tons of litigious companies who would love to take a bite out of Twitter's overvalued ass, but the public has agreed to protect them from this as long as they are not biasing or ideologically censoring the comments, which they appear to be doing.

    Additionally, the Internet was build by US Government Subsidy, and the rollout of this network was tax payer funded via $200 billion dollars (whether any of that money actually improved the network is a different story), point being just like roads maintained by the state, the network has also been developed and maintained by tax payers. The C programming language is an ISO standard which costs tax payer monies to maintain and test and research and continue development of. Twitter also performed tax avoidance to keep from paying their fair share of taxes. I mean, even their employees benefit from being educated and having their kids educated by public schools, and are able to drive to their offices and live in a low crime neighborhood policed by cops all of which are funded by taxes, which Twitter tries its hardest not to pay.

    Can you name a single thing Twitter uses that ISN'T in some way benefiting from tax payer monies?

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday April 27 2016, @03:21PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday April 27 2016, @03:21PM (#337975) Journal

      Copyrighted works, posted by users, and granted governmental immunity to host said copyrighted works under the DMCA, but only so long as Twitter acts as a common carrier for the user generated content and does not introduce political or ideological bias, or otherwise editorialize the content.

      Oh, come on. I admit that Twitter has a contract with the public guaranteed by the DCMA, but do tell me what tax money are spent today on the account of DCMA in its relation with Twitter?

      Additionally, the Internet was build by US Government Subsidy, and the rollout of this network was tax payer funded via $200 billion dollars (whether any of that money actually improved the network is a different story)

      But inside the same story is the fact the Internet is used by the public to reach Twitter resources and pull their tweets, and is not Twitter that is using it to push tweets to the public (the way natural gas or drinking water do).
      So, good job govt! You enabled your public to use Twitter services, watch movies on NetFlix (or download them P2P), use private email if so they want, buy drugs on SilkRoad or watch ISIS propaganda. Why would you use different sticks to measure the behaviour of a private company and the behaviour of a private owner of any Web site (which can censor what goes or not on their site all she like)?

      (other countries have done their side of Internet much cheaper or let the private initiative do it - but that's another story).

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford