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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: 3, Touché) by JNCF on Wednesday April 27 2016, @05:44AM

    by JNCF (4317) on Wednesday April 27 2016, @05:44AM (#337798) Journal

    How would you feel if an individual person owned a communication platform that had a similar level of penetration? Not that such a thing is realistic, but would that change the situation for you?

    If so, at what threshold of popularity does somebody lose the right to ban Donald Trump from commenting on their personal blog?

    You're definitely correct about the horrible effects of corporate censorship. I don't support this crazy system at all, but I don't think that having the government make more speech-rules is the solution; this is the slipperiest of slopes. I'm more in favor of fire and pitchforks.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2016, @05:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday April 27 2016, @05:53AM (#337805)

    I don't want the government involved either, but I don't think your "fire and pitchforks" solution will work; most people care about convenience above all else and have few principles.

  • (Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:42AM

    by legont (4179) on Wednesday April 27 2016, @06:42AM (#337825)

    I agree with you that we need less laws - much less - but it is a separate issue. While we are where we are, corporations should be regulated to a big pain in their buts. Besides, The Collapse of Complex Societies [wikipedia.org] would make your pitchfork dream more plausible.

    --
    "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
    • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday April 27 2016, @05:30PM

      by JNCF (4317) on Wednesday April 27 2016, @05:30PM (#338041) Journal

      ...are you arguing that increasing bureaucracy is a way to bring society closer to collapse?

      I've read books that reference Joseph Tainter before, but never read him directly. I hadn't previously considered this little nugget from the wikipedia article you linked:

      And, in his final chapters, Tainter discusses why modern societies may not be able to choose to collapse: because surrounding them are other complex societies which will in some way absorb a collapsed region or prevent a general collapse; the Mayan and Chaocan regions had no powerful complex neighbors and so could collapse for centuries or millennia, as could the Western Roman Empire - but the Eastern Roman Empire, bordered as it was by the Parthian/Sassanid Empire, did not have the option of devolving into simpler smaller entities.

      That's an interesting thought.

      I don't really think this society is on the verge of collapse and/or revolution, but I'm obviously wrong about plenty of things.

      • (Score: 2) by legont on Thursday April 28 2016, @04:01AM

        by legont (4179) on Thursday April 28 2016, @04:01AM (#338264)

        The way it is currently going, I think it will collapse. The only way out there is an exponential growth, which is not sustainable unless one really believes in singularity.
        Anyway, I believe that the sooner something rotten collapses the easier it is for everybody. Let's leave alone the whole society for now. In the case of a corporation, a reasonable policy would be to actively try to crash it just to see if it is already rotten enough. Regulations, especially permanently changing type, is a good way to achieve that.
        At the same time new small business should be helped and left alone. Perhaps it will kill the corporation.

        --
        "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.