iNow

^*premise

He is indeed a symptom of a deeper illness, but he’s also actively helped it to metastasize. These same “patriots” would still be bloodthirsty. They’d just direct it at these fictional Muslims doing the things they’re doing themselves this week instead of directing it at our elected officials and civil servants. https://constitutioncenter.org/learn/educational-resources/historical-documents/perspectives-on-the-constitution-a-republic-if-you-can-keep-it

It’s not my pessimism, mate. It’s an FBI security alert about right wing terrorism and confirmed premeditated threats in the days ahead. The National Guard is already deploying thousands of troops. Trump can be silent forever more and these currents will continue crashing on the shore. Unless he comes out and says VERY clearly, “any acts of violence at government sites or on elected officials dishonor me PERSONALLY,” then this toothpaste is already out of the tube and isn’t going back in. Sometimes once you light the fuse you can no longer stop the explosion. My hope is that this advanced knowledge is enough for the real patriots in my country to stop (or at least minimize) it

https://www.vox.com/2021/1/11/22225531/joe-biden-trump-capitol-inauguration The other poll cited above that arrived at nearly identical conclusions can be found here: https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/us/us01112021_usmk38.pdf

Btw - Just to follow up on this... 40% of voters meet that criteria according to at least two recent surveys conducted in the last week. The number for republicans jumps to 74%.

I tend to prefer letting markets decide this, too. Where things get rather more complicated is when state actors, foreign governments, and militaries are actively engaged in operations to sow discord and strife on those platforms.

It’s going to be a dangerous 10 days... likely more... https://abcnews.go.com/US/armed-protests-planned-50-state-capitols-fbi-bulletin/story?id=75179771

It's a good point you make. I'm also not convinced there's a good way around it. These judgements will always be subjective. At best, we set guideposts and a framework to think through these things, but it will always be handled on a case-by-case basis. @swansont posted a link earlier today that touches on this (while he shared it in context of moderation here at SFN, it applies here, too): https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210108/17022646023/not-easy-not-unreasonable-not-censorship-decision-to-ban-trump-twitter.shtml

Learned something new today. Thank you for the correction.

I went and checked. That's not what he said. He said we support you in bringing our country back together and wish you great success. Not that we should be allegiant to Biden, but to the need for healing. This is a good point. Most of the "best" lies out there contain elements of truth... it makes them more believable, and it's how that truth gets twisted or "orders of magnitude" effect get ignored that makes them easier to accept. Correct as a general trend, but I promise you I know far too many well educated people who are currently deeply entrenched in Trumpistan... several with advanced degrees and even JDs. Poor education is correlated, but not causative or prerequisite. This would help, and I appreciate your point about blocking these sites being problematic in principle. I also think we need to avoid being rigid with our principles and adjust to the situation. Your argument is a bit like saying we should let forest fires burn because suppressing them makes them stronger in the long-run. That's a totally valid point, however right now the fires are burning down peoples homes and we need to extinguish those, too. They're not mutually exclusive, and we need to do both. We can't just say "let the houses burn... we need to let nature be nature." There's a balance to be found somewhere in the middle. In much the same way, we need to discourage this type of thinking with reason and education exactly as you suggest, but we also need to suppress its spread into the fertile minds of others... It is it's own type of virus... a virus of the mind... and we need to socially distance it, too. Shutting down the sites is a type of vaccination... not 100% effective, but slows the spread... We can't just rely on herd immunity as more and more people get infected with this type of thinking.

Dim - While your fortune cookie posts and novel views on questions are often fun, this might be a time where it's better to let a person familiar with the literature and process of vaccine-based immunity respond to the actual question asked in the OP Fairly sure a reference to "War of the Worlds" is not going to be helpful here, despite being interesting in its own right

It seems to depend quite a bit on who posts it and where. Some select few get anointed as messiahs and their word is gospel regardless of how absurd their words become. Add to this mix growing up religious and thus having a predisposition for accepting things as true without evidence, slight tendencies toward mental illness, and the fact that acceptance of one conspiracy makes you more likely to accept others. Teach people to reject fact checkers, treat all news as fake, avoid dissenters and listen only to the tribe, and manufacture reality nonstop, then voila! Cults and Scientology and QAnon and Trumpism is born

It’s an amplifier, not a root cause. Lies and disinformation and absurdities spread in nazi Germany, too... well before social media. Schwarzenegger put out a good video today speaking along these lines and how the siege on the capitol was like Kristallnacht. This is a much bigger conversation. The question is not if the law should change, but how. Here’s what protects them today: https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230

Not without a constitutional amendment. Right now, the power to manage elections is given to the states in Article 1 of the constitution. The focus will be on expanding voting rights and access, something which is considered a federal issue. Except for district lines, these other things are federal. The districts are drawn locally and republicans kept control of most state houses so will be able to further entrench their gerrymandered lines. Back to the thread topic, Brad Raffensperger will be on tonight’s episode of 60 Minutes. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-georgia-call-pressured-voter-fraud-evidence/

Tomorrow morning, Speaker Pelosi will request infamous consent in the House to call on VP Pence to convene with the cabinet and invoke the 25th amendment to remove Trump from office. If they do not receive unanimous consent, it will be brought to the floor for a vote on Tuesday. He will be asked to respond within 24 hours. She will then agree with the demands of her caucus to move forward with articles of impeachment later in the week.

No. Out of that sub-population of voters who thought enough fraud took place to change the election outcome, 56% of those felt the siege of the capitol was a good thing. 34% of those opposed it.

This is bananas

I’d need to reevaluate my views and/or seek alternative channels to explore them I do tend to agree. I feel the same way about those in the Trump admin who are “bravely” resigning in protest when there’s only 10 days left in their jobs.

Modulate your acceleration. Harder acceleration drains batteries more quickly than gentler smoother acceleration

I reject your premise. It’s false. They’ve always been obligated not to allow incitement of violence, calls for insurrection, and the only real question is what took them so long. This is a good point, and it’s the lever the companies have been using to take down Parler... That their moderation policy is insufficient Indeed. Part of what I’m wondering about, though, is whether some of those outlets will involve actual physical violence... thinking of new “militias” and “shooting clubs” forming with these politics as their foundation

This is a question of psychology, not physics

Do you mean by owners of television news stations, radio stations, newspapers, printing presses, and monks or slaves serving as scribes? Publicly listed, privately controlled. You’re a smart man. Don’t continue this path of argument. Couldn’t they simply setup another platform elsewhere? Microsoft hasn’t banned them from Azure, for example.

That just means people can buy shares, and even if they acquire more than 50% to take control, that control will still be private Any wagers they’d do a better job defending it?

Does it matter? Either way, the Twitter ban is permanent, so it seems the answer is no. Hence my creation of this thread to discuss it. ✌️