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Comment by Simulacra

5 years ago

Because suspending Spike Lee would have required someone at Twitter to make that decision, and they're not going to do that. But will leap at the chance for Trump. It's been a clear double standard for years.

17 comments

Simulacra

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pknopf  5 years ago

Plenty of left-leaning people get banned as well.

  • Simulacra  5 years ago

    But not for tweets of violence, and they're not getting fact-checked like Trump.

    • vkou  5 years ago

      Only accounts with a large reach get fact checked. Unfortunately, leftist lunatics don't have the same reach as him, so they aren't ever going to get fact checked. (Just banned for violating the TOS.)

      Edit: Don't understand the sentiment. Are there any radical left accounts with as much reach as the POTUS, that engage in similar behaviour that I am not aware of? If they exist, they should be trivial to link to. Looking at the top Twitter accounts, they consist of Barack Obama, YouTube, Modi, Bill Gates and a bunch of celebrities. Are any of those folks radical left? Will Lady Gaga or Katy Perry be opening the 2021 Superbowl halftime with "Internationale?"

      4 replies →

druddha  5 years ago

If they were going to "leap at the chance" to suspend Trump, then why haven't they already? He's been treading in the grey area of their ToS for years.

  • beerandt  5 years ago

    Conflicting interests between how much they disagree with him politically and how much money they directly make off of his traffic (and less directly via traffic from everyone complaining about the controversy).

    Twitter's business model is totally reliant on controversy. They want to treat/control, but not cure/extinguish.

    Which is a separate reason that twitter's ethically conflicted in making almost any judgment calls on what's "allowable" speech.

    Additionally, the nature of mud-slinging politics requires that ones opponents "follow" his online presence in able to attack. So if Trump leaves Twitter, not only do his followers go to whatever new platform he does, but so must his adversaries.

    Twitter doesn't want that.

dmode  5 years ago

Yes, double standard to protect Trump. Who has for years twitted violent stuff, racist stuff, and Twitter had let it slide. I don't get this weird victim mentality of Trump folks. Trump has been treated with kid gloves by Twitter. Meanwhile, the largest broadcast network is literally Trump's state media.