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Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

(techcrunch.com)
707 points patd | 3 comments | 27 May 20 12:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.633s | source
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Cthulhu_ ◴[27 May 20 13:42 UTC] No.23323041[source]▶
I hope he goes through with it, then gets dragged for abuse of power. But that's not likely to happen; the president has too much power, and there are no checks and balances in place. He is only still in power because his party voted to keep him in a sham 'trial', and they only voted in favor because else their party would look divided.
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akhilcacharya ◴[27 May 20 13:45 UTC] No.23323069[source]▶
It's remarkable that Trump has consistently been against free-speech but still has the support of a non-trivial number of self-described "libertarians" like Thiel. This is in the 1st amendment sense as saying he wants to open up libel laws in 2016 [0] to his comments on video games [1] and flag burning [2] to in the broader sense in his anger at the kneeling protesters [3].

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/02/26/do...

[1] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/fact-check-tru...

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/15/no-braine...

[3] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-nfl...

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1. nautilus12 ◴[27 May 20 13:50 UTC] No.23323169[source]▶
In this instance is he really against free speech though? Seems like the struggle seems to be between his freedom of speech and twitter's. It all comes down to the question of whether twitter is a "publisher" with the freedom to edit/change content users post on its site. Seems like they want to be treated as both when its convenient for them.
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2. rtkwe ◴[27 May 20 14:08 UTC] No.23323481[source]▶
His speech is still there it just has a commentary beside it. Nothing in 230 requires a company to be either neutral or hands off with user content to get protection from civil liabilities for moderation.
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3. nautilus12 ◴[29 May 20 00:44 UTC] No.23345002[source]▶
You were saying...