Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

For the most part, I support platform neutrality. I don't agree with all the Google censorship of misinformation and "misinformation" on their platforms. I think Facebook should have less evil algorithms (it seems designed to encourage polarization), but I wouldn't want censorship or commentary their either.

This case is an exception. Twitter drew a line in the sand. It is in exactly the right place.

The PoTUS is threatening to shut down elections in November: he seems to be doing everything in his power to have a national emergency then when people can't vote, to shut down post offices, and to ban voting by mail. Any other problems with the PoTUS, we should address in the ballot box and through citizen activism (not through corporate activism). But when the PoTUS tries to shut down the ballot box or shut down citizen activism, that's different.

I don't think he's likely to be successful, but I didn't think coronavirus would hit us this hard either. In January, it was a manageable billion-dollar problem. We did nothing. Now, it's a multi-trillion dollar problem. Right now, Trump trying to cancel the election is a manageable problem too; by his personality, if he doesn't get traction, we're done. He'll move on. But if he does get traction, we'll have a completely different scale of problem on our hands.

> It is in exactly the right place

If they start fact-checking everybody, it is. Otherwise, they're just campaigning for the other side.

The internet itself needs to be the platform that is neutral, and then allowing the freedom of people to have private corporations - "digital land" they own - and can therefore moderate how they choose to govern, thereby giving individuals the freedom to decide who they use, give their attention to, and support financially.

There are separate issues like economies of scale that don't allow a completely level playing field - however a monthly UBI where part of it is required to be allocated to be used for digital services (e.g. pay for Facebook vs. being bombarded by manipulative ads) would allow everyone to afford costs of bandwidth-CPU usage etc to take that burden off of private companies and would level the playing field.

Similarly these massive platforms like Facebook wouldn't have grown to their scale if people's data and networks were completely mobile with no friction, therefore it would be a competitive battle based on governance and not merely difficulty, laziness, leading to strong defensible network effects.

"The PoTUS is threatening to shut down elections in November:"

linkage ??

If there's a public health crisis, and people can't safely leave homes and can't vote by mail, there is no meaningful election.

Right now, he's:

* Doing everything in his power to have a public health crisis (which means people can't go out to vote)

* Working to bankrupt the USPS so people can't vote by mail

* Threatening to go after states which support vote-by-mail (that's the tweet and similar statements -- withholding federal funding to states which vote by mail)

That's a concerning set of signals.

That's not a verbal threat like a declaration of war, if that's the link you're looking for. It's a threat like when a country conducts military drills on your border, or like when there's a new virus outbreak on the other side of the world. Problems might or might not materialize, but you should take actions to be ready both to minimize the odds of problems, and in case they do.

Our current PoTUS is an opportunist. He hedges and hangs out ideas to see if they'll get traction. If he gets any traction on an idea, he exploits it very effectively. If he doesn't get traction, he moves on. That has upsides and downsides, but in this case, it's to everyone's advantage that he doesn't get traction.

And the response should be very similar. If a country appears to be preparing to invade, you prepare to defend yourself. That doesn't mean you need to be obnoxious about it or try to provoke a war (politeness pays), but you do want to respond to the threat.

I apologize if I was imprecise in my wording. The word 'threat' has multiple meanings. I don't want to vilify the PoTUS, but I do want to make sure the checks-and-balances stay in place. That take vigilance against threats, both real and potential.

There isn't one. It's just fearmongery.

They have been fact checking other people. It was precisely that they weren’t fact checking trump.

"Logical" HNers will say that those bullets don't amount to a bad faith attack on the election. They basically give Trump the benefit of the doubt.

You can't give authoritarians the benefit of the doubt. They'll take that inch and turn it into miles and miles.

Trump is well beyond benefit of the doubt bankruptcy.

Fully agree with this post. This administration does not have the public good at heart. Democracy must be sustained at any cost, and one particular political party (with power stolen through gerrymandering and stonewalling) led by one particular authoritarian (who is strongly supported by criminal foreign oligarchs and Americans who hate race mixing) is doing all it can to erode fundamental democratic institutions. That anyone supports these brazen power grabs is extremely disconcerting to me.

Recommendation: "Hiding in Plain Sight" by Sarah Kendzior: https://www.amazon.com/Hiding-Plain-Sight-Invention-Erosion-...

They don't amount to an attack. They amount to a threat.

Threats to our democracy need to be checked.

This isn't about Trump or about giving or not giving someone the benefit-of-the-doubt. If it were Obama, Warren, Bush, or whomever else, I wouldn't want to give a path to cancelling an election either. The PoTUS doesn't have that kind of power, and it the PoTUS is making moves suggesting that kind of power grab, they need to be checked on it by the rest of the system, whoever it is, and regardless of intent.

That's the point of checks-and-balances: they're something we should be able to agree on regardless of whether we trust the individual. They're about the system and not about the person.