Ok so he’s dissing the incoming President... ok, that’s rude. But the other preceding text is pretty anodyne.I think it’s clear about controlling the narrative.In the end what this will do is kickstart more of an echochamber on another service, they’ll diverge and we’ll get people in one camp on one platform, the other camp in the other. Except they’ll be more extreme on both sides as moderates tail off.

&gt; Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.That&#x27;s so Orwellian. That so obviously reads... &quot;we wanted to ban him, so we did&quot;.Like, if you want to ban him based on past tweets, just do it. But to claim that this tweet is inciting violence is just farcical.

&gt; The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!&gt; To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.Imagine living in a society where saying either of these things is a banning offense. To all the censorship apologists here: you&#x27;ve given unelected and unaccountable people at big tech companies the ability to decide what people can say in public. Is that really the world you want to live in?

Per the linked article:&gt; The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!&gt; To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.

It sounds like he tweeted new things today that they considered breaching their earlier warning? Does anyone know what those tweets were?Edit: Oh, damn, I had just seen the Twitter Safety and just assumed that this was linking to that, not to a separate blogpost. As many people have pointed out it was for these two tweets:On January 8, 2021, President Donald J. Trump tweeted:“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”Shortly thereafter, the President tweeted:“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

This was the straw that broke&#x27;s the camel&#x27;s back, Trump&#x27;s influence is waning (since he&#x27;s not going to be in office any more in a few days), and even his supporters are distancing themselves. I don&#x27;t think Twitter could have done this earlier without risking lots of blowback.

If I incite a mob to march on the seat of government, commit acts of sedition against The United States, and directly threaten the peaceful transfer of power, and refuse to abide by the terms of service, I deserve _a lot_ more than being banned from my social media site. You have to look at it in context.

Any leader inciting insurrection against their own country should be banned.You know what? I don&#x27;t think anyone I would support has a problem clearing that very low bar.Maybe people should be less concerned that Trump got banned for being a lying, traitorous piece of shit and more concerned that he was ever president in the first place.

This power has been used in ways I disagree with since before Trump ran for office. I still prefer a rules-based society to anarchy.However, I also prefer anarchy to oligarchy: People have even specifically demonstrated that Trump was receiving special privileges which prevented him from being banned, and they did so by getting themselves banned for tweeting copies of his tweets.

You may agree with this new power now when its used on Trump, but you might not agree with it in the future. By then it will have been too late.

Surely there is an important difference between just not conceding and actively campaigning false allegations of voter fraud.

Do they have to incite a mob to overtake the halls of a separate and equal branch of our government resulting in the deaths of five people including a police officer?

With great power comes great responsibility. The president of the United States should be aware of how his words will be received. And he is responsible for the consequences of those words. He doesn&#x27;t have to concede but by constantly claiming the election was stolen he is responsible for the ensuing violence.

The looser does not have to concede. There&#x27;s no requirement to do so, and there&#x27;s precedent not to as well.

That&#x27;d be Raúl Castro (Cuba for the unaware).

It&#x27;s still there: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;POTUS" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;POTUS</a>

Just to keep things in perspective, Twitter was founded in like 2006 so Twitter has only lived through 3 presidents.

First president in history to be banned from twitter

They let him concede, waited a day, and then nuked him. It&#x27;s too little too late, but I&#x27;ll take it.

You could be totally correct. I would like to know though.I think you think it lower than me and I think it higher than you. Ha. Just good that he is gone.

Maybe not directly, but there&#x27;s no denying that he drives engagement metrics from all sides. Engaging products are stickier, and thus drives product teams intensely to continue doing so.Of course we&#x27;ve seen intense polarization because of this, but all that aside it&#x27;s easy to see why a company beholden to shareholders would hesitate for so long.

I think the extremely online political junkies vastly overestimate the amount of money Twitter derives from Donald Trump&#x27;s tweets. Most people just use Twitter to follow their friends and celebrities and don&#x27;t hang on to his every word.They were mostly refraining from taking a harder line on Trump because they were worried about retaliation from the Republicans. Now that Trump&#x27;s out office and the Democrats control all three branches that&#x27;s no longer a concern for them.

&gt; I would like to know how much revenue Twitter and Facebook madeI would assume not that much, unless the ads being shown to his followers were for extended mags, American flags, MAGA hats, or truck nuts.

Finally ... ding dong the witch is dead.I would like to know how much revenue Twitter and Facebook made off of this POS. Doubtful we will ever hear such things.

The appeal of social media is that they no longer had such a heavy hand about it. It&#x27;s virtually the entire point.

I&#x27;m pretty sure public utilities don&#x27;t get to deny service for political wrongthink, though. And platforms like Android play store and the iPhone app store are definitely that (regarding Parler).

Twitter itself presents itself to investors and users as communication network, not a publisher or media company. This is a direct quote from the very first paragraph of their 10K filing:&gt; Twitter shows every side of the story.So, I&#x27;d say the better analogy isn&#x27;t a news station or printing press. This is more like if Verizon decided to start censoring your phone calls.

Yes, it is the world we live in, and have pretty much always lived in. Private companies have been deciding who gets &quot;air time&quot; ever since we had radio or TV. And with the printing press, it&#x27;s always been private companies deciding who gets airtime.

You are right this is between a rock and a hard place. There was is something about the control of the spread of information that gets me. As someone else mentioned the moderation on HN is one of its strengths.Maybe I&#x27;ve read too many books like 1984. It&#x27;s the concentration of control of information that I don&#x27;t like. If that control is in the hands of one company or the government it&#x27;s all the same to me.It scares me that one company reaches so many that banning one user can have political impacts. It also gives me hope that even POTUS isn&#x27;t powerful enough to stop them.

I really don&#x27;t want the government to force me to serve people who destroy my private enterprise.This isn&#x27;t any different than a bar kicking out a patron for starting a fight - even if they happened to be the person with the largest bar tab.

Twitter, Facebook, etc, are more powerful than “air time.” They are the most dangerous propaganda tools ever created.  As we continue to discover.

Only in the US. That’s why the UK has the BBC.

People get banned from Hacker News all the time, are you also upset about that?

Can you tell me anywhere this isn&#x27;t the case besides maybe people raving on the street? Genuinely asking.

That’s how it always was, even pre internet.

I mean, precisely because it&#x27;s a private company, so they can set their own rules, guidelines and procedures?Twitter have clear terms of service, and Trump broke them multiple times on a daily basis for the past few months at least - if he hadn&#x27;t have been POTUS, his account would have been terminated long ago.

Don&#x27;t use their platform?If it&#x27;s disruptive for one private company to kick someone off, then perhaps they shouldn&#x27;t have that much control over communication?

He can make statements from the White House. The White House, the house of Government of the United States, global hegemonic power still massively powerful even in an increasingly multipolar world.If he has something important to say as the President of the United States, he can make an official statement as a head of state.Nothing to be sorry about him losing a social media account.

Private companies already determine what you do with your waking hours and many other aspects of your life that you have to conform to or face homelessness or worse. This is only a smaller effect of control.

I really don&#x27;t when a private company decides who gets air time and who doesn&#x27;t. Oh well it&#x27;s the world we live in.

First they came for the narcissistic sociopaths and I said nothing.

Which can be changed by Twitter at any time.

&gt; Who&#x27;s next?Anyone who violates Twitter&#x27;s terms and conditions.

So you don&#x27;t support FDA, EPA, Net Neutrality etc?

What precedent? That a private company can ban people from posting on their servers. Well, duh.

But Apple just threatened to ban Parler. If you want to play this little charade at least try to keep up.

Trumps free to go to parlor or some other right wing dumpster fire.

<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;khamenei_ir" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;khamenei_ir</a>Funny, that account isn&#x27;t banned.

I don&#x27;t think that a precedent has been set here - Trump&#x27;s behaviour is unprecedented, and Twitter let him get away with a helluva lot before finally suspending him

Violate the terms, get banned. That&#x27;s fair.

&gt; In isolation they aren&#x27;tHold on there, we&#x27;re still talking about Twitter, right?A content business that limits the length of a statement on its platform to 280 characters is now arguing that statements on its platform must be read in a broader context?Seriously?

In isolation they aren&#x27;t. Immediately following the quoted tweets they explain:&quot;Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks.&quot;They then explain exactly what they&#x27;re thinking about those tweets.

Weird they quote the tweets which are so &#x27;dangerous&#x27;

Free speech extremists seriously think a private company should be forced to keep someone who uses their platform to incite deadly riots.Trump&#x27;s free speech here has consequences. 5 people have died.

I mean it&#x27;s only unfair in that anyone else who has continuously violated twitter&#x27;s rules would&#x27;ve been banned long ago.

You can take the mask off and just say you’re a Trump supporter.Anyone else who would’ve tweeted the things he has for the past several years would’ve been banned a long time ago.

Unfair moderation is not a good precedent.

It looks like a thug on the floor of the senate with zip ties in hand, and we’ve seen it.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.snopes.com&#x2F;fact-check&#x2F;zip-cuffs-capitol-riots&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.snopes.com&#x2F;fact-check&#x2F;zip-cuffs-capitol-riots&#x2F;</a>

Not sure why you&#x27;re being downvoted....

Said the frog in the slowly warming water.

Consider yourself lucky that you have absolutely no idea what fascism looks like.

Agreed that it&#x27;s too little too late but calling Twitter &quot;complicit&quot; is pretty ridiculous.

I actually agree, and I upvoted you because I think this is worth discussion.My question here though is: does blocking Trump from Twitter really equate to blocking the public from hearing what he&#x27;s saying? As someone who doesn&#x27;t use and never really &#x27;got&#x27; Twitter it&#x27;s really hard for me to take Twitter that seriously. Aren&#x27;t there myriad other and better ways for the president to reach more people? (Note that only a small-ish minority of U.S. adults even use Twitter at all)

But still, the action happened on political basis. This feels  something I used see happening in Eastern Block or USSR some 40 years ago.

As Trump is the President of the United States, knowing what he says is in the public&#x27;s interest - until the end which is reached nowadays.That&#x27;s why this action happened now and not much earlier.

I don&#x27;t think you know what the 4th word of your own sentence really means to the context of this situation.

4 years of fascism and inciting violence is all it took. This is far too little too late and Twitter is clearly complicit.

Elaborate.1A says the government can&#x27;t make a law abridging speech.It doesn&#x27;t say Twitter can&#x27;t refuse to make posts submitted by X available to everyone who accesses their systems via the Internet.I can see where if many people depend on a company, some need to prevent arbitrary cutoffs of service is needed if the service is needed for life--such as heating, food, ER service, etc. Twitter is not needed for basic survival.

this is wrong. I dislike Trump and his 4 years but this is wrong.

Not only that, the account could have done worse in the coming weeks - so it&#x27;s better to be late than never.

It seems cowardly to me to use force to shut people down. But it&#x27;s a free country and they own their platform, so i think it should be allowed. I just think it will allow for more competition for Twitter.

I see that people are complaining it&#x27;s too little, too late. But c&#x27;mon, there&#x27;s a certain amount of appreciation due, isn&#x27;t there?

Pretty sure that is exactly what will change.

clearly it’s more than that. these companies are more than just private companies they are social utilities. and might be regulated as such in the future. that’s my point.

Big tech has gotten away with the monopoly-but-not-abuse-of-monopoly argument for a decade because the platforms were free and available to everyone.If the second point is not true anymore... it&#x27;s going to start getting regulated like a utility. Your electric and phone providers can&#x27;t simply decide to stop serving people it doesn&#x27;t like, and likely, Twitter won&#x27;t either.

This is a very relevant point for about 2005.In the years since then, what was once a constellation of internet platforms has shrunken and consolidated to only a handful that are the de facto gatekeepers.Legally, of course, nothing has changed since then. But it&#x27;s willfully ignoring the unprecedented power of major platforms in shaping popular dialog to compare them to a local supermarket escorting someone out.

How about private business (Apple) disallowing people to use an app (parler) on their property (iPhone)?

Most people acknowledge that social media has an unprecedented ability to sway elections. Wouldn&#x27;t it follow that allowing them to deplatform politicians is a seriously concerting form of censorship, private business or no?

I see this comment a lot.What does suppression of free speech in America look like to you then?

So we need the gov to create a public twitter? It is not very hard or expensive, and twitter will loose market

That private businesses can keep people off of their properties?

Not too long ago. I think the Pandora&#x27;s box is that the social media companies really had a choice of two universes:* A world where they weren&#x27;t the arbiters of truthiness, and were a place that supported &#x27;free speech&#x27;.* A world where they decide what posts to show, and it&#x27;s their job to moderate the platform.The decision to take the second approach is actually a pretty recent development. These companies can no longer hide behind the &#x27;we are just a platform for free speech&#x27; line of thinking, because they have now decided that&#x27;s not what they are about.

People are banned all the time. The only reason he wasn’t banned earlier, and there has been plenty of opportunity to do so, is that he stood in a position of privilege, having been elected president.

If TOS will begin to also apply to famous people then I welcome its opening.

nah, a pandoras box was opened in wake of the 9-11 attacks. In comparison, this has practically no implications for big tech going forward.

This has been my experience. I used to help moderate a forum, and never had any issue at all banning people for posting racist stuff up until 2016. Then people started calling that &quot;political&quot; and insisted I was biased against conservatives after I banned someone (who happened to be of a certain political affiliation) for making a thread full of just &quot;fuck muslims&quot;. It caused drama and I left. People are overly primed for the narrative that conservatives are irrationally oppressed online and they ignore details to make it fit.

People are banned all the time for all kinds of reasons. Only when it’s” conservatives “ does the outrage machine spin up. The only reason he made it this far is because he got special treatment for YEARS

The Pandora&#x27;s box was opened when there was a violent takeover of the Capitol. Not because some tech company ban a garbage human being

Funny thing is these nerds think they’re getting “in” now and that they’ve paid their dues. They never had a chance.

Me thinks this will have huge implications for big tech. A Pandora’s box was just opened.

A world governed by patch notes.  Hoo boy.

He spoke to them for over an hour telling them how angry they should be, that they should go to the Capitol, and that they should fight. The mob did as he told them to do.

It is 100% certain that the riots would not have happened without him and the things he Tweeted. I don&#x27;t even see how you can make that argument honestly.

Update: People are more emotionally involved with this than I am. I&#x27;ll avoid getting involved.

I think its easier to ban him based on political justification than it would be to ban in in a post-presidency. I also think they are less than interested in enduring his antics as a former president considering how much he abuses the court system to get his way.

It&#x27;s really important realize this distinction. Imagine a newspaper printing a letter to the editor from a person whose words have previously incited a riot.I find it surprising that they enabled the account again at all after the 6th.

He literally told people to stay peaceful...

Which is why interpretation of speech requires context.Yelling &quot;fire&quot; in an open field vs a packed cinema are obviously are easy to interpret. There&#x27;s a whole bunch of grey area in the middle.

I think it&#x27;s simpler than this. There will likely be an inquiry, and &quot;enablers&quot; may be held to account. This potentially includes social media platforms such as Twitter.

Additionally I believe wholesale banning the leader of a country from a platform like twitter is not black or white. Their persona is different and requires different treatment than any other given account.I suspect two factors went into the calculus this time: he has proved himself desperately dangerous AND he&#x27;s got less than 2 weeks left in his term.

Should there be a distinction when the bad things aren&#x27;t said on Twitter itself? Ignoring the argument that what happened in DC was the culmination of Trump&#x27;s incitement throughout his presidency, his order to his supporters to march to the Capitol, and claiming he would be marching with them, was _the_ direct call to action. It was given during his in-person speech in DC. Why should Twitter ban him for that?I think he was banned because Democrats took control of power and FAANG is telegraphing their compliance to those now in charge of how they&#x27;re going to be regulated. They&#x27;re going to over-correct, as they&#x27;re starting to do with banning Michael Flynn and more will follow.Anyone on YouTube or Twitter that doesn&#x27;t outright refer to the people who broke into the Capitol as terrorists or insurrectionists are getting demonitized&#x2F;banned -- literally forced groupthink influenced by who is allowed to monetize their videos. People on the left are trying to extend the culpability of those who broke the law to those who voted for Trump. Implying nearly 70 million people are themselves insurrectionists. I don&#x27;t think this will be good for the Internet the next time the GOP gets enough seats to pass legislation. I&#x27;d be happy knowing that&#x27;s the worst of what&#x27;s to come.

&gt; Mob actually materializes and several people die - Twitter sure they now have to take him literallyAngry groups of protesters and resulting deaths are not a thing that started happening this week. Twitter are pathetic and have taken a stand once the writing was on the wall.

I&#x27;ve not seen a source for this claim

Black Lives Matter is still allowed on Twitter. Dozens of people have died from their protests and riots, not to mention hundreds of businesses vandalized, looted, and set afire. Ditto Antifa. This ban is utterly political, which, depending on how &quot;libertarian&quot; you are, may be fine. But the precedent is not a good one in my opinion.

Person says SARS-Cov-2 is no big deal or cured with quackmeal, causes deaths, not de-platformed.I think it&#x27;s a calculated risk knowing that Biden&#x27;s win was actually certified so there&#x27;s now no way this can come back and bite them. I am sure in an alternate universe @PresidentForLife would have been able to tweet indefinitely.Twitter wants no skin in the game.

A left-wing aligned media business has just taken a serious political action against the sitting president. They didn&#x27;t even wait for the dust to settle and Trump to leave office. Twitter has not had time to link tweets in the internet world to actions in the real world; there is normally a settling after this sort of event where it turns out that what actually happened was different to the first two weeks of media reporting. When everyone calms down a month after the crisis, this will be looked back on as opening a can of worms that was a horrible mistake.This protest in the Capitol is a right-wing escalation of a sustained left-wing effort to paint the 2016 election as illegitimate. The US is in trouble if this new thinking takes hold and businesses start exercising their right to discriminate politically. The country will be inoperable.

The seriously v literally question is fascinating. It was the basis for this recent NY Times article:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;07&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;trump-capitol-protests.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.nytimes.com&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;07&#x2F;opinion&#x2F;trump-capitol-pro...</a>And that article references the original piece in The Atlantic that, inadvertently, provided the get-out for what the NYT laments:<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;09&#x2F;trump-makes-his-case-in-pittsburgh&#x2F;501335&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theatlantic.com&#x2F;politics&#x2F;archive&#x2F;2016&#x2F;09&#x2F;trump-m...</a>

So Obama, Biden, Bush, et. al. should be banned too for all the completely unnecessary wars&#x2F;drone strikes that killed civilians?? Or is killing civilians sometimes accepted?This move is entirely political, Twitter should just man up and accept it, instead of insulting our intelligence.

&gt; Person says bad things to whip up a mob - Twitter unsure to take him seriously or literally.&gt; Mob actually materializes and several people die - Twitter sure they now have to take him literallyBy this logic do we not also have to delete the account of everyone prominent who tweeted anything to the effect of &quot;no justice no peace&quot; with respect to BLM, given that several people died there as well?

Did you actually read the Twitter blog post explaining the ban? They claim Trump 
Tweeting that he will not attend the Biden inauguration is “an incitement to violence”.  That’s delusional.

This was happening during BLM endlessly last summer. Verified profiles calling for this kind of action, saying looting is part of the struggle and the right thing to do, etc, etc.Weirdly Twitter didn&#x27;t seem to wake up when that was happening.

He also tweeted praise for the insurrectionist and justifications for the insurrection during the attack.Any idea that he hadn’t realized the effect his words would have and had learned his lesson go firmly out the window.(If there were any remaining doubts before that... did anyone believe he didn’t know what he was doing?)

What bad thing did he say to incite the mob?

I think the logic isn&#x27;t that hard.Person says bad things to whip up a mob - Twitter unsure to take him seriously or literally.Mob actually materializes and several people die - Twitter sure they now have to take him literally

Sarcasm doesn’t work too well in a text medium, but if taken at face value Simon Wiesenthal would disagree with you

Of course, it’s unreasonable to act upon what someone did X years ago.

Twitter rules are so broad and states so vaguely, that half of the Twitter users technically violated them numerous time, and Twitter applies these rules selectively.

Sure. He&#x27;s violated twitter&#x27;s rules numerous times. This is as good of a time as any to actually enforce their rules.

I know Trump supporters, and even they (the ones I know) don&#x27;t justify his tweets. If Twitter had used numerous previous tweets, I could personally go and argue with those supporters and feel like I was making headway.I don&#x27;t argue with them to change their mind, I argue with them for the crowd of 5-6 people listening who are on the fence. All of them were just pushed off that fence.

You are being incredibly naive to think that the people in question are capable of changing their minds on this particular topic at this particular time.

A bit of a grim point, but the timing is also right in that the majority of staff are currently WFH, removing much of the potential for any violent protest&#x2F;retaliation at their offices. Maybe being naive but I wonder how much this has been a consideration in the past.

I mean, they were going to ban him on January 20, 2021 at 12pm no matter what.  The last few days just escalated the timeframe.

It may be that there is in fact a line that you can cross where the general public becomes significantly less apathetic.

&gt;It&#x27;s strange that they picked such a poor way to justify the ban when they could have made a significantly stronger case, and in doing so could have convinced millions more people that they are trying their best to apply policies evenly.It&#x27;s clear that people are trying to make this into a cultural moment where you either distance from &#x2F; renounce Trump (which is almost costless given the immanency of his term&#x27;s end) or you&#x27;re treated as an unrepentant enemy of civil society. We&#x27;re seeing pro-Trump hubs being systematically purged in various ways from a variety of platforms right now, and the symbolic value of moves like this is what&#x27;s paramount.

&gt;As such, our determination is that the two Tweets above are likely to inspire others to replicate the violent acts that took place on January 6, 2021, and that there are multiple indicators that they are being received and understood as encouragement to do so.

Trump will take up shop on Parler and be welcomed with open arms.

I made a comment before to the effect, what happens when you are banned permanently from the biggest social media platforms currently in existence?Will these bans carry over and will they start to affect any who oppose the bans or simply parrot what he says elsewhere?Will these spawn new social media sites or will they damage existing ones or do both? This is all so fascinating and frightening at the same time. People may want to claim there is no government interference but these sites have for many years recently reacted to the threat of it which in turn effectively is what is happening now.I am just find this all so bizarre but I think these sites figure they can act now simply because in a short time he will not be in his position of power and lose the bully pulpit which he can use without them

In other words:Never let a good crises go to waste.

“Wall of text rationalization”That’s a great term. They write dozens of inaccurate statements stitched together with their own emotional baggage. What’s the result?You have no idea where to attack&#x2F;address&#x2F;start because their entire wall of text is riddled with false assumptions and straight misinformation.Never seen one Trump supporter have clear, cogent thoughts.

Calling terrorists patriots sounds like a stellar reason to ban him. This is prime, low on content, high on wall-of-text rationalization.

The people that stormed the capital have been pretty clear about their position here: they plan to continue escalating unless Trump is installed into power for a second term. There&#x27;s nothing we can do to meet people who think like that halfway; the only course of action which might avert further tragedies is to convince them that they aren&#x27;t very powerful and won&#x27;t be able to achieve their goals.

&gt; The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation. I’m sure that’s not what we need, but I’m also sure that there is no good way out of this mess.I actually think that the reason we are in this mess is because there have been zero consequences for terrible behavior, so far.Of all the terrible things Trump has done, it has taken inciting a riot, an attempted overthrow of our democratically elected government, for him to loose his megaphone. Why was incarcerating children at the border not enough? Or encouraging those &quot;fine people&quot; in Charlottesville who murdered a woman? Or one of the many other instances of him spewing hate?We need more accountability. Actions have consequences, and it is long overdue that those people who take irresponsible, harmful actions, either out of desire for personal gain or sheer idiocy, start feeling the consequences.The right is supposedly the side to which &quot;law and order&quot; appeals. Trump and his people are exactly the kind of people who need to know that they will get punished to the full extent of the law when they misbehave. That&#x27;s the only thing that will keep them in line.Because it&#x27;s not like they have a moral compass to fall back on.

I think the person who was blocked on twitter will perceive this as an escalation too.

&gt; The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation.One can argue that this type of person would potentially perceive any action (or inaction) as an escalation. That doesn&#x27;t mean that action shouldn&#x27;t be taken.

On the one hand it looks bad for the incoming party to immediately replace the palace security and start issuing arrest warrants for opposition leaders, but on the other hand it may need to be done in order to run a government that isn&#x27;t under physical siege on a regular basis.

&gt;I think it will have some negative 2nd&#x2F;3rd order effects. that they haven&#x27;t yet realized.This is correct. The type of person that stormed the capitol will perceive this as an escalation. I’m sure that’s not what we need, but I’m also sure that there is no good way out of this mess.

I agree with the action and disagree with their justification.Because of the weakness of their justification, this could be further gasoline on the fire for his 74 million supporters. I frequently find myself having to argue with said supporters, and I can&#x27;t argue that this justification makes sense other than to say... well they should have banned him before hand.It feels like they were looking for almost anything remotely shitty that Trump said to ban him. More specifically, they are looking for a reason to ban him based on saying anything not in support of the next administration, because of his supporters storming the capital. I can see the chain of logic here, I just think it&#x27;s a little weak and being selectively enforced.Edited: to make more sense hopefully.

Don&#x27;t you think that one of the most important changes in recent weeks is that he&#x27;s now a lame duck, he doesn&#x27;t really have power anymore. This is why he&#x27;s been losing more an more allies since election day. Powerful figures and institutions can change their stance now and this is a preemption of his exit when the next president takes over.I&#x27;m basically saying, it&#x27;s a whole lot easier to be &quot;brave&quot; and deal a blow to a lame duck than a live tiger.

The environment has changed, most significantly in that Trump is no longer going to be in control of the DoJ in a few weeks. This isn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back, this is the last straw before the straw dispenser was relieved of power and no one had to accept straw from them anymore.

&gt; Actual riots, insurrection, disruption of government, assaults on law enforcement, damage to government buildings, theft of government property, violence, and deaths, have occurred.This describes the past half-year in Portland, Seattle, and more sporadically in many other cities.I believe that no accounts on the Left: organizing, not merely advocating - have been permanently shut down.So, I&#x27;m very skeptical that anything legitimate has changed. It feels very political.

The environment has changed.Previously theoretic risks are now manifest, demonstrated, and cognizable.Actual riots, insurrection, disruption of government, assaults on law enforcement, damage to government buildings, theft of government property, violence, and deaths, have occurred.The instigator is unrepentent and non-credible in what are at best tepid disavowals.The totality of context has changed. If &quot;he has tweeted worse things in the past&quot;, the undeniable impact is abundantly clear.The ban is absolutely warranted. If anything, it is many years too late.Twitter specifically address these points:Due to the ongoing tensions in the United States, and an uptick in the global conversation in regards to the people who violently stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, these two Tweets must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks. After assessing the language in these Tweets against our Glorification of Violence policy, we have determined that these Tweets are in violation of the Glorification of Violence Policy and the user @realDonaldTrump should be immediately permanently suspended from the service.From TFA

This is an uncomfortable suggestion, considering that in 2020, there were mass protests about relevant deaths.

I really wish this would&#x27;ve been the first time that tweets by Donald Trump led to deaths.

Trump&#x27;s own behavior is the strongest case imaginable, if you&#x27;re not already convinced he deserves the ban nothing twitter says is going to change that.

Using that logic you are banning him because riots happened; Banning him for actions that occurred outside of twitter.Is the beginning where people get banned from social media for being part of a unwanted group. A case could be made for preventing anyone who has gone to jail from being on the platform in the efforts to cutdown on future crime &#x2F; increase children safety, etc.

This seems like a very &quot;engineer&quot; response to what went on in that it misses the forest for the trees, and I don&#x27;t mean that in a derogatory way (I often do it myself), just in a matter-of-fact sort of way.On one hand, I agree with you, the actual content of those tweets is much milder than what he has tweeted before. On the other hand, that absolutely does not matter, at all. 99% of people aren&#x27;t even going to read the details of what he was banned for. Those who are against him are going to think it was long overdue, and those who love him are going to see it as further evidence of Big Bad Big Tech. But in any case, the actual real, violent assault on the Capitol that was fomented by Trump is the important context of why he was banned - the details of the individual tweets are almost irrelevant.

&gt; 230 is safeBoth sides have said 230 needs fixed&#x2F;removed, if for different reasons. to think 230 can&#x27;t be removed&#x2F;fixed now is laughable.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;obama-section-230-tech-firms-regulated-treated-as-publishers-2020-11" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.businessinsider.com&#x2F;obama-section-230-tech-firms...</a>&gt; President-elect Joe Biden has said that he wants to revoke Section 230. When Biden was vice president under Obama, the administration was largely hands-off when it came to the tech industry.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnbc.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;biden-wants-to-get-rid-of-techs-legal-shield-section-230.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.cnbc.com&#x2F;2020&#x2F;01&#x2F;17&#x2F;biden-wants-to-get-rid-of-te...</a>&gt; Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden told The New York Times editorial board that tech’s legal shield known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act should be revoked.<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usatoday.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;tech&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;04&#x2F;trump-biden-pelosi-section-230-repeal-facebook-twitter-google&#x2F;4132529001&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.usatoday.com&#x2F;story&#x2F;tech&#x2F;2021&#x2F;01&#x2F;04&#x2F;trump-biden-p...</a>&gt; Democrats, including President-elect Joe Biden, urged Congress to revise Section 230 to force tech companies to remove hate speech and extremism, election interference and falsehoods. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Section 230 a gift to Big Tech. &quot;It is not out of the question that that could be removed,&quot; she said in 2019.

The biggest reason for the timing IMO is the Senate races in Georgia. Now that Dems are in control of all chambers and Biden&#x27;s appointments (to FCC and others) can go through, net neutrality is safe and section 230 is no longer in danger of being repealed, so Twitter will not face any consequences for the ban.

Would you change your opinion if your life or life of your family member depends on what president says on Twitter?Can you put yourself into shoes of SOS of Georgia, policeman in DC, senator Lindsey Graham? The mob will tear them apart if they had a chance and mob is advised to do so by Trump. I live in Trump country. A lot of Trump supporters take his calls to action literally.Should someone&#x27;s freedom be curbed if it causes harm and death to someone else?Practically though he will still have ways to reach his base. It&#x27;d be okay if they cook in their own soup but problem is that their madness spills over and innocent people get harassed, hurt and now killed. Imagine being on the plane with dozen of Trump supporters and no bodyguard that want to punish you? That&#x27;s how Mitt Romney felt few days ago. Whose freedom of speech created this situation?

Twitter has probably been given detailed information by the FBI about upcoming attacks being coordinated

&gt; This ban seems to heavily take advantage of the current moment, as it&#x27;s obvious that he has tweeted worse things in the past.I don&#x27;t blame them. Would you rather ban a vindictive US president or an outgoing, lame duck US president in his final days of office? Besides, regardless of how you feel about him, he&#x27;s one of the main reasons Twitter is still relevant today. If they banned him sooner, they would have lost a ton of traffic.To be clear, I am not for or against Twitter. I&#x27;m just making sense of their rationale.

Trump was democratically elected (by commoners). Twitter was built with wealthy private investor money. The fact that Twitter banned many of the commoners who elected Trump, but couldn&#x27;t ban Trump himself until now due to the fear of public backlash is a testament to how anti-democratic it is to have private control over the national means of communication.

Negative 2nd &#x2F; 3rd order effects were inevitable when they made the &quot;newsworthiness&quot; carve-out in the first place.One rule for the king and one for the commoners isn&#x27;t a very sustainable policy.

That&#x27;s just incredibly obtuse. Obviously &quot;patriot&quot; isn&#x27;t an epithet but applying to the people you just incited to an armed revolt against our elected government makes this absolute worst thing he&#x27;s ever said.

&gt;(Also because apparently I have to state this explicitly in every comment related to Trump: I do not support Trump, his supporters, the recent events that occurred at the capitol, etc etc)The manichaean thinking from both sides is what is really going to doom us in the long term. The other side isn&#x27;t ever interested in improving the state of the world, they are evil and must be stopped. Even when they say the exact same things you said two weeks ago they are wrong, because it doesn&#x27;t matter what is said, it matters who said it.Best of luck to the future octopi civilization that will uncover these servers in the submersed ruins of the US.

could have convinced millions more people that they are trying their best to apply policies evenlyTwitter is never going to convince everyone that they are being fair, and that isn&#x27;t their goal here. A better way to think of their timing is: &quot;You come at the king, you best not miss.&quot;If Twitter had banned Trump pre-election and Trump had won anyway, the political battle afterwards for the US government to censor social media would have been terrible. Now that Trump is a lame duck and top Republicans have criticized his actions, Twitter is acting from a position of strength.So, it&#x27;s certainly taking advantage of the moment. It&#x27;s a brief period when the Republican party will be unable to strongly push back against banning Trump. If they successfully pull this off, not only will Twitter get rid of an annoyance, they will set a valuable precedent that they have the right to ban the US President from their platform.

You&#x27;re evaluating the ban in terms of Twitter as a moral regulator of discussion, not as a media company seeking to control a maximal share of the discourse. Trump was allowed to use the platform because media companies used it to follow him and Twitter wants everyone at CNN and FOX to be reading Twitter. Trump was always going to be permanently banned from Twitter when he was no longer politically relevant simply because he&#x27;s broken the rules literally hundreds of times. It simply happens that he finally ranted himself into irrelevance (Facebook&#x27;s ban helps here) and Twitter realized that they could push the ban up two weeks and snag a bit of the spotlight.

While I can understand Twitter&#x27;s move, I think a permanent suspension of the account will do a disservice in the long run, at least the way it is implemented right now.Each and every tweet by him now simply shows &quot;This tweet is unavailable.&quot; See the legendary covfefe tweet, for instance: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;realDonaldTrump&#x2F;status&#x2F;86976699489946828" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;realDonaldTrump&#x2F;status&#x2F;86976699489946828</a>...I would prefer if they marked his account as read-only. Maybe after the inauguration.

&gt; then someone could sue twitterTwitter is protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act which states in relevant part, &quot;No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.&quot; 47 U.S.C. § 230(c)(1).Here, Twitter is the provider of the interactive computer service (Twitter) that will not be treated as publisher or speaker of the information (tweets) provided by another information content provider (@realDonaldTrump). Therefore, Twitter will not face any civil liability for Trump&#x27;s tweets.

IANAL, but one possibility that comes to mind is that these examples are specifically chosen to limit liability. For example, if they banned Trump today based on comments he made a month ago, then someone could sue twitter for allowing speech they themselves admitted caused violence.

Ironically, I was worried about it before, but not now. Now that the Capitol Hill event has happened, the security effort will undoubtedly be multiplied multiple times over.

I&#x27;m scared for the inauguration. Already lots of chat on the same forums&#x2F;parlor&#x2F;etcThe scaffolding and wooden structure they were on is the JCCIC built platform, and that disgusting video of the tunnel is where POTUS walks out...<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cJOgGsC0G9U" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=cJOgGsC0G9U</a>

Patriots historically refer to citizens who have taken to arms to defend their country.When has he ever used this term before to refer to his supporters?It&#x27;s not a good time to begin to refer to your supporters in the context of using weapons to defend the country on the heels of the capitol building being stormed and four people dying during a final election recount.The thing about manipulation is it always claims plausible deniability. We all know this.&quot;It&#x27;s heavily taking advantage of the moment.&quot; Umm yes. Regardless of whether you are a republican or a democrat, storming capitol hill during an election recount diminishes the validity of either party and the country as a whole. This country is the center for innovation and generally the most sought after democracy in the world. The entire world is watching. Taking advantage of the moment is exactly what he is doing. If you read about coups in the past there was never an explicit sentence that drew the line between now I am and evil dictator and now I am not. It was building an army of radicalized supporters, patriots, if you will while government officials around the person in power dropped like flies as things escalated much like what is happening now. We do not need to repeat history to say we proved he did it because by that time it will be too late.It is clear for months trump has been warned of how this kind of inflammatory behavior will impact the people at large and potentially radicalize either side and he has been nothing but inflammatory.If he really cared about securing democracy at large as opposed to his own power in office he would be taking extra precautions at this point.He is doing the opposite.I get what you mean though. Unfortunately both sides have significant radicalized sides now. And looting storming buildings and murdering law enforcement and lighting fire to buildings has been normalized now by both sides in 2020.My parents are trumpers in the deep south and these are the things they have said to me in the past couple of days:Mark Zuckerberg is an abusive dictator not Trump.My mother condescendingly whispered to me poor thing noone told me all the protestors were antifa who knew if they didn&#x27;t storm the building and steal the ballots that trump would win. So they were all actually secret democrats.They both believe trump is the rightful president for the next term.

The news media reliably produces these “something must be done” stories that the powerful can then use as cover for actions they normally wouldn’t dare to take. And all at the same time - no coordination necessary, no central agenda, just an understanding that for some short period, all sorts of questionable actions will be excusable. A sort of Schelling point for anti-societal behaviour.

That may be a factor but I think it&#x27;s pretty easy to see why banning him now (instead of earlier) could be done without the reasons you invoked:1. His tweets didn&#x27;t incite angry mobs to assault federal buildings before2. Some time ago when Twitter was defending why they aren&#x27;t banning his account, they said something about this effectively being a public government account so banning it would do more bad than good (and instead Twitter went ahead and &quot;annotated&quot; his tweets instead of just removing them). This determination had both pros and cons for Trump, the pro being much harder to ban his account but the con being that he couldn&#x27;t block people from replying to his tweets anymore. With him now out of office his account loses that status so it should be much easier to ban it.

&gt; Perhaps they have a strategic reason for going about this how they didOne advantage may be that once the context is forgotten it will appear that Twitter has set a low bar for banning a powerful world leader from the platform.

By that if you mean &#x27;violent inciting free speech&#x27;, then yes, sad day for that.

why? twitter isn&#x27;t the government, nothing is stopping anyone&#x27;s free speech.

Absolutely the opposite of your sentiment.

Would you agree that there are many ways to deliver a message?
Do you think verbally insulting my friends to the point where they can no longer communicate with me is freedom of speech?. Things are not black and white

Regardless of your beliefs, today is a sad day for free speech.

I can&#x27;t agree, this is the peak of the trump era, a last hoorah for him and his followers. They will now be pushed to the fringe and Trump will go to jail for a significant amount of time in New York for serious tax fraud and bank fraud no doubt.

&gt;It&#x27;s strange that they picked such a poor way to justify the ban when they could have made a significantly stronger caseDoing so is an advantage if you want to create a display of raw power. The poorer the justification, the better.

(Also because apparently I have to state this explicitly in every comment related to Trump: I do not support Trump, his supporters, the recent events that occurred at the capitol, etc etc)It is a horrible state of affairs where you need this disclaimer in order for your ideas to be taken more seriously. Not directed at you personally, but as a descriptor of the situation.Is it any surprise people are angry and furious and lashing out when they are dismissed solely on having differences of opinions from the establishment?

Twitter, Facebook et al. have been getting a lot of flak recently for having algorithms that lead to radicalization of users (i.e. maximizing engagement&#x2F;controversy for ad revenue). I think Trump is the best scapegoat they have for the alt-right radicalization phenomenon, rather than the platform themselves. The events that transpired recently are a perfect distraction for a deeper problem that lies with Big Tech.(Similarly... I don&#x27;t support Trump either, etc. etc.)

Another possibility: Twitter and Facebook have become aware of skulduggery in progress that we don&#x27;t know anything about yet, such as a plot centered on the inauguration ceremony on the 20th, and don&#x27;t want anything to do with its participants.Facebook in particular will obviously be the first to know about any such plot, long before any intelligence or law-enforcement agency. Twitter wouldn&#x27;t be far behind.

He’s not going to be in power much longer, so there’s no harm ruffling his feathers now. They have confirmation with the Biden certification. That’s really all it is.

This ban seems to heavily take advantage of the current moment, as it&#x27;s obvious that he has tweeted worse things in the past.It&#x27;s strange that they picked such a poor way to justify the ban when they could have made a significantly stronger case, and in doing so could have convinced millions more people that they are trying their best to apply policies evenly. For example, I have a hard time imagining why they chose to specifically quote &quot;American Patriots&quot;, as if that somehow contributes to the straw that broke the camel&#x27;s back. Perhaps they have a strategic reason for going about this how they did, but I think it will have some negative 2nd&#x2F;3rd order effects. that they haven&#x27;t yet realized.I imagine we are still only in the early days of the conflicts that are to come in this sphere (and I&#x27;d include just about every company and political faction in them, unfortunately).(Also because apparently I have to state this explicitly in every comment related to Trump: I do not support Trump, his supporters, the recent events that occurred at the capitol, etc etc)

That&#x27;d be one more putsch instead of as many as Trump can whip up from Twitter.

Wouldn’t this create more tension by the violent rioters taking it as an offensive to the president by the left?

It is a bad idea.And it seems coordinated with a parler ban at app store level and a purge of other political figures.It just begs for a counter move. He is still the president, not all out of options.

This is not a good idea. Whatever you think about Trump, he is still holding public office.

Him plus a number of other right wing figures. So is he about to move to parler which is about to be suspended by Apple and Google?

No, that&#x27;s not just you. They probably wanted to align with other social media platforms, who had already permanently suspended him yesterday.

They hardly need to make a court case at this point.

I&#x27;m receiving your benign post in a harmful manner. What should we do in this situation?

They didn’t just look at the tweets; they looked at how they’re actually being received. I think that’s a crucial distinction.

They have bent over backwards to keep him on the platform...

They have absolutely not wanted to ban him since day 1. He brings in millions of users and clicks.

They didn’t want to lose his audience to a competitor more than they wanted to ban him. It’s not political backing, it’s preferring money over morals.

They start deleting all kinds of pro trump accounts.

The only reason they’re finally banning him is because his worth runs out in 12 days.Dumping him now allows Twitter to virtue signal and avoid looking like an enabler of literal violence, all while giving up virtually nothing in return.Kind of like how his cabinet members are now resigning. No big loss for them, as they’ll be out of a job shortly anyway. Might as well “stand up to him” while they still have the opportunity to reap political kudos.

Trump brought immense traffic to Twitter. Jack Dorsey is simply virtue signaling now that he’s reaped everything he can from Trump’s existence on the platform... social media has far too much power, and the heads of these organizations are not your friends.I do not support or endorse Trump or his cronies.

They&#x27;ve wanted to ban him since day one. They just have the political  backing to do it now.

If you&#x27;re saying they don&#x27;t have a good reason, but you dont like the guy so you&#x27;re glad it happened to him... don&#x27;t you see how this is a problematic precedent? If trump supporters were in the majority would it be ok for them to censor democrats?

Agreed. I don&#x27;t disagree with the ban, but their justification is weak.

Yeah I feel the same way. I don’t like Trump but Twitter’s justification is weak and their message is pandering to the masses. No sustenance.

The problem with saying speech is a &quot;dog whistle&quot; is that there is no defense against it. If people in power do not trust my words, then how can I convince them that they are trustworthy without appeasing them?

Agreed.  It very well may be coded speak to rile up some supporters and drive them to violence, but that&#x27;s hardly clear to the average observer.  There are so many other instances of direct calls to incite violence, it&#x27;s rather sad that these were the two that broke the camel&#x27;s back.

I agree, inciting that violent mob to storm the Capitol building, while a join session was certifying the election seems to be a better reason.

Partly maybe, but for most it‘s too little, too late. Banning him for two of his weakest tweets on a history of four years of inciting hatred, bigotism and violence does not put a good light on Twitter.This smells like some extremely transparent opportunism after all they‘ve earned with 45.

It&#x27;s extremely weak, but that doesn&#x27;t matter. Twitter has been wanting to do this for a very long time. This was the perfect catalyst and they&#x27;re going to be lauded for doing so by the left.

Is it just my perception, or is their actual justification using the 2 quoted tweets kinda weak? Interpreting his boycott of an event as a call to violence seems like a huge stretch. It seems like they wanted to shoehorn a justification using his 2 latest tweets when the actual reason goes back further.

Permanent suspension of @realDonaldTrump