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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   Edited 1yr ago   34411 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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It seems like Trump is getting his twitter back. The weird thing is I think red tribe doesn’t want him to get twitter back. I don’t. Blue tribe will put up a big fight over it but actually be very happy if he got twitter back. Then they get his tweets to rally against. For now Musks says he’s thinking about it. From a free speech absolutist view he does have to approve it. But I still want him to say no.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1593673844996288512?s=46&t=o4yJPOOQnQoAxYXvJuPdlQ

Musk twitter poll on reinstating Trump. 60% Yes at 1.8M votes.

Bold considering some significant fraction of online Trump people have moved to other platforms, Gab, Gettr, .win, Truth, others.

Seems to have evened out a bit more since then, now 52% yes 48 no.

I would do this as a trap to catch bot activity. Alternatively, it would be funny if people came back who claimed they were done with twitter specifically to vote in this poll.

he never said when

I can't believe he actually made a twitter poll and said "Vox populi, vox dei". He has to follow through with whatever the crowd says right? He wouldn't have any credibility left if he backed out after this.

Crucially, he never said when, so who knows. He obviously left that key detail out. I think he will get to it eventually. It's worth noting that other individuals pitched money to buy Twitter, not just Musk, who may not want him unbanned and may have some leverage over Musk.

I think he has to let Trump on even if poll goes negative. Trump has a fairly high probability of being the next Potus. Facebook will let him back on too. A guy like that can’t be banned.

Why not?

No, seriously, what's so important about Twitter/FB that the POTUS needs to be on it? It exists to make people feel more "in the loop." For normies that's mostly an illusion. For the most powerful man on Earth, it's definitely an illusion, plus some level of ego trip. Doesn't strike me as worth pursuing.

It’s the town square. You can’t have major political figures being banned from walking down Main Street and talking to voters.

A court has ruled that POTUS cannot block journalists from his private account, so if access to POTUS' tweets is some sort of fundamental right, I don't see why that right should not apply to all private citizens.

No, the court ruled that because Trump used his Twitter account to conduct government business, and because it was open to general discourse by the public, it was a designated public forum. The court said:

the First Amendment does not permit a public official who utilizes a social media account for all manner of official purposes to exclude persons from an otherwise-open online dialogue because they expressed views with which the official disagrees

Since Trump is no longer a govt official, his account is no longer a designated public forum, even if he uses it for his campaign. Campbell v. Reisch, 986 F. 3d 822 (8th Cir. 2021).

If you're going to say "no" you probably should say something that contradicts me. When Trump was banned he was still POTUS, and we are discussing a scenario when he's POTUS again.

We are talking about whether he should be restored now, are we not?

And, btw, your premise ("if access to POTUS' tweets is some sort of fundamental right") is completely wrong; the constitutional question is not about access to tweets; it is whether a govt social media account can engage in viewpoint discrimination. The case was about the right to speak, not about the right to access information.

More comments

Does he have credibility left to lose after weeks of own-goals?

What own goals? Firing / getting people to quit when he needs to cut staff by about 80-90%?

How many of those people were providing value in excess of cost?

The platform still works, and if he is to be believed daily active users are up, so I would say yes.

If the result doesn't come out how he wants, he'll rig it or change it and cry "bots".

Does Musk have a pattern of behavior of this sort of thing?

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