Tweeter by Nancy Ohanian"Trump," wrote Tony Romm and Allyson Chiu at the Washington Post yesterday, "took to Twitter early Friday to condemn Minneapolis demonstrators as 'THUGS,' threaten military intervention and suggest it could lead to 'shooting,' prompting the social-media company to take the unprecedented step of limiting the public’s ability to view his tweet. The label appended-- which Twitter also appended later to a tweet from the White House-- marks the second time in a week the tech giant has taken action in response to Trump’s controversial remarks. Trump and his allies again decried the move as censorship, promising to regulate the company a day after he signed an executive order that could open the door for the U.S. government to punish social-media sites for their handling of political speech online.
Critics immediately condemned Trump’s tweet, asserting that he was promoting violent retaliation against protesters, and Twitter took swift action. “This Tweet violated the Twitter Rules about glorifying violence,” read a gray box that now hides Trump’s tweet from public view unless a user clicks to see it. In doing so, Twitter also prevented other users from liking the president’s tweet or sharing it without appending comment.“We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance,” said Trenton Kennedy, a spokesman for the company....In an act of defiance, the White House hours later reposted a quotation of the president’s controversial comment about shootings on its account. That, too, received a label from Twitter indicating it broke company rules around glorifying violence....The dispute immediately exacerbated tensions between the Silicon Valley company and Trump, who tweeted later Friday morning that he had been unfairly targeted. For years, the president has maintained Twitter and other tech companies exhibit bias against conservatives, systematically limiting their posts and quietly banning right-leaning users-- a charge for which Trump has provided little evidence, and one that the industry strongly denies.But their dispute took on greater significance on Tuesday, after Twitter bowed to years of public pressure and sought to fact check one of the presidents remarks for the first time. The company appended a link to news articles to two of Trump’s tweets about alleged election fraud, sparking fierce blowback that later led Trump to sign an executive order targeting Section 230, a portion of federal law that shields Twitter and other tech firms from most liability for the content they allow or take down. Critics say the order threatens free expression on the web, running afoul of the Constitution.“Twitter is doing nothing about all of the lies & propaganda being put out by China or the Radical Left Democrat Party,” Trump said in a later tweet. “They have targeted Republicans, Conservatives & the President of the United States. Section 230 should be revoked by Congress. Until then, it will be regulated!"
Trump often brags his regime has thrown out more regulations than any presidential administration in history. That he has found an industry that he wants to regulate wouldn't surprise anyone who understands the way his mind works. One person who does, is Bob Lefsetz, who publishes a crucial music industry newsletter-- a must-read for everyone in the music biz. So what's Trump got to do with the music business? Nothing... but there is that free speech thing he abhors for everyone but himself. Yesterday, Lefsetz wrote that "Jack Dorsey is standing up for all of us. In other words, Trump fucked with the wrong asshole."
What was the Facebook motto? “Move fast and break things.”? The history of the internet is the techies do what they want and legacy entities challenge said change and in the middle of the argument, they lose all standing.Happened in the music business. The record companies shut down Napster and lost half their revenue. You see the labels thought it was all about stealing, whereas it was about their flawed business model. Fans didn’t want to pay fifteen bucks for a CD with one good track. They wanted live cuts and rarities, a whole smorgasbord of music. So, Napster was shut down and KaZaA and lockers replaced it and the labels kept fighting the past, and losing all the while. Too much credit is given to the iTunes Store, that was a stopgap measure, it just allowed non-techies to pay for tracks, whereas the enlightened continued to file trade. It wasn’t until Spotify that pirates gave up (10% will never pay, Michael Eisner said that, and he was right) and revenues did a U-turn and started to climb.You see you’ve got to give the people what they want.So, the techies have all the power. Look at Google and Amazon, between them they own search, even Microsoft could not make inroads with Bing!And conversation takes place and news is gathered on Twitter and Facebook and…the oldsters would prefer people consume at the trough of legacy media, i.e. print (and its apps) and TV. But youngsters have no need for physical, it’s old news, and they’re cutting the cord, they don’t even get Fox and MSNBC, never mind ABC or CBS, and if they do they don’t pay attention to them.So, many say Trump got elected because of attention, and that to defeat him this has to be addressed. But Trump is good for legacy media businesses. Cable ratings have gone up, as have subscriptions to the New York Times. They’re not gonna crack down. They too are part of the elite and they cannot change their model. As a matter of fact, The Times bends over backwards to criticize Democrats, fearful of criticism from the right. Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal op-ed pages are all right wing all the time and Fox believes there’s only one true view, fact-based or not.So Jack Dorsey takes a stand when no one else with any power is willing to. And he’s not backing down, he’s leaning in, adding notices to more tweets, not afraid of the president.I mean why should you be afraid of the president, he’s a paper tiger built on hype, there’s no there there.But Pelosi and the news outlets just play the game as usual, say their hands are tied, that there’s nothing they can do.But Jack Dorsey had enough.Now few had a problem when Alex Jones was shut out of social media. Sure, some continued to defend his inane theories, but sympathy with the Newtown parents and…it was hard to look the other way.But now that Twitter wants to shut down Trump…actually, not even shut him down, just establish a counterbalance…the attackers are crying foul.This is like a cheater bitching that they’re no longer able to cheat. Even worse, they want the rules changed so they can continue to cheat.Democrats are passive. They believe their hearts are in the right place so they don’t have to be educated on all the issues and they don’t have to play hard. But when someone challenges the whole game… That is what this is about folks. Even Trump said it himself! The fear is if everybody gets to vote, there’s no way in hell he, or any Republican, will get elected.Meanwhile, the Democrats do nothing. They win the battle of votes, but lose the Electoral College. Meanwhile, Trump says he won the popular vote…and he’s got the biggest megaphone of them all, so his words have influence.Zuckerberg wants out. He’s preparing for a future decades down the road. Without Instagram and WhatsApp he’d be up shit’s creek. He got caught in the crossfire hurricane of D.C. and the duplicitous little fuck is playing all nice with the establishment so he can continue to rape and pillage and hide under the pretense that he’s doing good. Come on, he’s got some secret algorithm that establishes what you can see on his site. And he charges people to be seen. And this is Mr. Neutrality who refuses to draw a line in the sand? He’s drawing lines all the time, just not in public.Google is in a search war with Amazon, and Europe is always knocking on its door charging monopoly, its days of “Do no evil” are not only long behind it, it’s afraid of doing anything that gains more attention, for fear of being Microsofted. As for Microsoft… The browser wars were no match for the cloud storage wars. Microsoft pivoted and profited. As did the Republicans. The Democrats, they’re living in the past, telling everybody they’re enlightened as they get richer and richer and that you’ve got to support them when they’ve got no plan for rectifying the inequities pushed upon the public.The DNC’s position is it’s a game of insiders. Only old people vote, so let’s concentrate on them and forget those who don’t cast a ballot. But the problem with this is eventually everybody gets old, and the younger generation and minorities have been screwed in a way they’ll never get over. So, when you don’t fight the big bad corporations that underpay them for gig work, when you don’t provide them health care, it’s gonna catch up with you eventually.In politics they never throw the long ball.In tech, if you’re not, you’re history.So we can parse it however we want. We can add up the offenses on both sides. We can analyze the law. But not only is that irrelevant, that’s not how they do it in tech. In tech…they do what’s in their gut.But tech is a game of musical chairs, and they’ve run out of extra seats. These are relatively mature companies without challengers. They’re their own establishment, albeit with different precepts.So, Jack Dorsey decides to do what is right.It’s just that simple folks. Forget the analysis. He had enough. His platform was being used to spread lies and to change our country and he decided to put his finger in the dike, he decided to take a stand when everybody else was afraid to. Furthermore, what he thinks and does matters, and the truth is in today’s world almost nobody’s opinion and action matters. You’ve got the right to say it, that does not mean anybody is listening.So Jack Dorsey was mad as hell and wasn’t gonna take it anymore.Trump bungled the Covid-19 response, and all the media and elected officials did was bitch, when they weren’t saying they had to be nice to Trump to get benefits. This is like an abused wife. You take it and take it and take it and…take it some more?I don’t expect a revolution. Because people love their flat screens and smartphones too much.Then again, the Supreme Court and the right wing said we live in a post-racial society where no voting protections are necessary and then innocent African-Americans are killed willy-nilly. Take that Tucker Carlson!So, Fox can go off the rails because of the end of the fairness doctrine.But now, in some bizarre twist, Trump wants reintroduction of a facsimile by fiat. Saying the left is inherently biased so he should be able to say whatever he wants whenever he wants.Tell me where in the world this works.And Dorsey has all the power, we’ve learned this over the past two decades, that government never understands tech and its wheels grind so slowly that by time D.C. acts, the cheese has been moved.Sure, we can debate whether the changes Trump wants will hold up to legal scrutiny, but meanwhile, probably at least through the election, Jack Dorsey is in control of his platform, he can do what he wants, there’s nothing Donald Trump can do about it.How does it feel to have the shoe on the other foot?America is the story of the power of the individual. One person can move mountains, one person can make change. They’re always acting on the right side, everybody knows the truth, even Trump, but almost everybody is afraid to stand up for it. But then you’ve got Martin Luther King. And you’ve got the techies.You hate ’em. Because they changed your life.The media hates Dorsey and Twitter because on the platform everybody gets a voice. And you don’t need the imprimatur of the New York media business to gain a following.Meanwhile, as per usual, the masses are clueless. They believe Twitter is a cesspool filled with bots where irrelevant people go to argue.That’s what they want you to believe. But if it was true, why would Trump be so pissed?And you can’t teach most oldsters to do new tricks. As in Twitter is just too complicated for them. They finally figured out Facebook, even though everybody on the other side of the hourglass has abandoned the platform.So, for four years we heard about bad actors interfering with the 2016 election. They even made TV shows about it, the woman from Cambridge Analytica came clean. But…after all that info, there can be no change, it must be business as usual. Huh? Jack Dorsey stands up to disinformation and now Trump calls foul? Especially after disinformation helped him get elected to begin with?Jack Dorsey is a billionaire. But he’s acting like a kid in high school, who has been picked on too often. You remember high school, where you’re all in it together. No one’s in it together anymore in America. There are the rich and powerful and the poor and weak. And there’s the smoke screen saying if you’re poor it’s your fault, there’s a job for everybody and you’re just too lazy to do it.But that job doesn’t pay the bills and…Who is standing up for you and me?Certainly not Joe Biden. He’s lacking in fundraising and internet traction, he can tweet but it’s like a tree falling in the forest, no one hears it. Which is why he needs to pick the right VP. Did you see Rachel Bitecofer’s piece on this:Why a Biden Victory Hinges on Picking the Right Running Mate.Bitecofer called 2018 right, but she’s not part of the establishment, she hasn’t paid her dues, so the DNC ignores her.That whole “meritocracy,” that whole business construct has been blown apart by tech.The Republicans decided to throw over all their values and line up behind Trump, who appealed to the rich and the left out, you can’t let the Dems gain any yardage.And the Democrats keep crying foul as the game is played, furthermore, it’s one in which there are no umpires or referees.And then Jack Dorsey comes along and says he owns the game and this is the way it’s gonna be. Dorsey is playing Trump’s game and Trump doesn’t like it.But I do. Because for once someone with money and power is doing what’s right as opposed to what’s expedient.We need more of this. It’s the only way out of this mess.
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