Trump threatens to 'close' down social media platforms

> On the one hand I don’t think we should leave it up to companies like Twitter to censor things.

True, but the think is Twitter did not censor his post. They added a "fact-check" hint that just pointed out that he was speaking made up thinks containing a link to an informative article.

This is very different to censorship. People can still freely decided to believe him, or read the facts and don't or read the facts and still believe him.

It's comparable with threaten to shutdown or control printed press when a specific new letter complained that what he says is complete makeup and wrong.

For people that treat a "Fact Check" as an automatic "filter out this information" (I think there is a huge subset of the population that does, people don't thoughtfully take into account Fact Checks, they just treat them as a rebuke), it has the net effect of censorship. The move by twitter is kind of dumb in that sense because the population has already polarized into groups that think anything trump says is false, and those who do not. They are just basically putting an official seal on which side of that argument they land.

Allowing him to post on their service with a counterpoint stitched right underneath his misinformation is far preferable for him to alternatives they could choose.

Those alternatives would be "censorship" (in some sense; not any real legal sense).

This is not censorship.

Trump's claim was that there _will be_ fraud if we have mail in ballots.

Unless Jack Dorsey knows the future, I'm not sure you can fact check something that hasn't happened yet.

Did you read the entire thing first?

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/mail-in-ballot-voter-fraud...

What's True

While no U.S. government agency officially compiles state-by-state data on voter fraud, and requirements for mail-in voting vary by state, analysis by elections experts shows that fraud is slightly more common with mail-in voting than in-person voting at polling places.

What's False All types of voter fraud in U.S. elections is minuscule in comparison to the number of ballots cast, according to elections experts. Taking that into consideration, it is problematic to make comparisons between types of ballot-casting systems and erroneous to claim mail-in voting "substantially" increases the risk of fraud.

What is the difference between this and the top tweet response posting the same response as always happened before with his tweets? The only thing we learned is that Twitter is no longer even trying to be impartial.

By your reasoning, what he said was not true in the sense that it cannot be verified.

This is such a bizarre and useless take. So now I can claim that gravity will turn off tomorrow, and because you don't know the future you just have to sit there quietly and let me spread obvious misinformation?

Trump is making an extraordinary claim. He must back up that claim, whether that's by revealing that there's a true plot against him; referencing historical data; or something else.

His claim wasn't that there will be some amount of fraud... it was that they won't be "anything less than substantially fraudulent" (https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/12652558351245393...).

Claiming mail-in votes will be majority fraudulent, and by implication that the entire vote is invalid... is a much stronger claim, which IMO requires much stronger proof.

Given that mail-in ballots have been in used for a long time, there's a good history of data, so it's not predicting the future out of nothing, but based on past evidence.

The twitter fact-check link in fact goes into that precise thing.

Twitter hasn't been trying to be impartial since the time they chose not to enforce their TOS when the US elected Trump, so that's nothing new.

The difference is that Twitter's editorial voice differs from the voice of some Twitter user.

Right, neither claim can be falsified until after the fact, so why add a "fact check" ? We won't know the implications of large scale mail in voting in the US during a particularly charged election until after its happened

This is ridiculous. The whole free speech argument is that people can decide for themselves when they have access to more information. Marketplace of ideas and all.

Now adding information is somehow bad? There is no consistency in this argument.

How many fraudulent votes constitutes a substantial amount? What percentage?

> experts shows that fraud is slightly more common with mail-in voting than in-person voting at polling places

So where is the line between slightly and substantial?

It's extraordinary to claim there will be an uptick in fraud if we do large scale mail in voting in the US?

Even the above linked claim in snopes says fraud is more common with mail in ballots.

They set up a commission in 2016 and found nothing so they closed it quietly. But they are still making the same claims. To me this shows that they have no interest in establishing hard facts. Trump says whatever benefits him as long as he can get away with it.

snopes? Really?

Interesting thing to consider..

If fraud is more common with mail in voting and some states (or everyone?) converts entirely to mail in voting, how much will fraud increase overall?

Will it increase enough to change the overall results? With Michigan and Wisconsin being decided in 2016 by less than 1% of the vote, there's not much margin for error, fraud, or mistakes.

Where it makes a difference in the vote at hand? Or, more likely, well before that

Twitter made a pragmatic choice.

They realize that simply deleting the posts in question and banning the user (Stable Genius) would have a serious backlash from the hard-right. They did what they feel was the next best thing, which is to call out the garbage for what it is by slapping an unremovable label on it. It sort-of seems like a "win", they get to smack-down the asshole, yet not "censor" him.

Unfortunately Stable Genius is playing a different game.

It's a game where outrage, even when directed at him, actually HELPS him. It gives him yet another grievance to trot around, yet another distraction for the public, more leverage for his base, more grist for his vitriol. Meanwhile other republicans will use this cover to continue to cram through unpopular and self-serving greedy agendas, in "shock doctrine" style.

The thing is Twitter is not news, it has no loyalty to the public or the truth. It is a purely money making enterprise, like any other corporation. Jack Dorsey and the board can do whatever the F they want.

another issue I don't see brought up in generalist areas is electronic voting machines. closed source / unaudited / unauditable software in voting machines - what % of fraud exists in those, and how would we even tell? lots of posturing about 'mail in' stuff right now, but compared to electronic machines used in many districts, I'd still prefer mail-in paper ballots.

How would anyone know what number of votes constitutes that difference until Nov 3?

Agreed. The entire system and the people involved must be open for audit and review.

Imagine what happens when $countryX realizes that bribing a few mailmen is even more cost effective than misinformation campaigns?