> I've read posts inviting people to hang and quarter democrats on the streets in front of their families, as well as posts inviting armed sedition against the institutions.
And I've read posts on HN saying we should hang and quarter Trump supporters; should HN be wiped from the face of the earth?
I disagree that the average person can genuinely believe that "take" is a strong word of force and should be banned from twitter. It's definitely not equal to "they'll be met with serious force" in terms of threat. This is the original point: "We'll take your guns" isn't inciting violence anywhere near the level that trump does. The comparison doesn't stand.
If you can make that argument with a straight face, I take my hat off to you.
Representative quote: A user wrote, “Rifles are the only way we're going to get any peace in our lives ever again,” adding, “It's either war and we get rid of these guys or a lifetime of listening to this shit over and over again start getting yourself ready.”
Well, looting had already started hours before he'd posted this.
That being said - the President of the United States, just stated on one of the largest social media platforms used in the U.S., that citizens of the U.S. are now to be shot. From his words, immediately. It could even be viewed as "they should've already been shot at"
If you don't understand how this is glorifying violence, I don't think you can be made to.
Honest question - if you characterize this as baseless fearmongering, how would you characterize Jade Helm, the Bowling Green Massacre, Reconquista or whatever name applies to the terrorist immigrant onslaught that Trump ranted about incessantly during the 2018 election?
Yes but the Trumpist part is nuanced. Armed people storming political organisations after the call of the ousted person who holds the power of the state, while expecting martial law and denying election results with claims convincing no-one but themselves is when people say somebody should take care these people.
It's fundamentally different from people exploring or even advocationg for economical models like communism or questioning geology like the shape of the earth.
This is more on par with islamists stockpiling for the jihad and actually taking actions to do it or a looner posting on 4chan about shooting kids and actually go to the school with guns and fire at people.
There's a difference between discussing ideas and organising an action, though both are done using the exact same tools - speech. It makes sense to disable the communications of the adversary who is in process of taking you out.
They are reacting to this message[1], which includes the phrase "when the looting starts, the shooting starts." It's a phrase that has been used as a pretext for violence against protests[2].
As mentioned in [2], Twitter reacted to the message on their platform. Facebook has the same policy against using their platform to incite or glorify violence[3], but have chosen not to enforce it (or disagree that it is an incitement to violence).
The current social media purge is against people calling for violent acts. That's somewhat different to calling for reciprocal violence.
You tell me you're a Trumper, I'm probably going to judge you a bit, but I think you have a poor measure of people if you think there's going to be a purge based on the idea of agreeing with Trump.
I'm no fan of Trump but can't he just argue the tweet means something more doing the lines of "where there's smoke there's fire" ie "looting might lead to shooting so we need to stop things before they spiral out of control"?
The fact that Twitter previously allowed hashtags like #KillAllMen to trend doesn't really indicate a consistent policy against "glorifying violence" to me...
You're making a false equivalence.[1] The "dweb" people were indeed merely anarchic and irresponsible. The deeper, conspiracy-minded parts of the MAGA community are verifiably dangerous. They said for weeks that a storm is coming, that they were going to take washington, that congress had to be stopped, that the vice president should be executed, etc...
And then on Wednesday they made the attempt.
Comments like yours are predicated on this idea that speech itself can only ever be merely "irresponsible". But... the world isn't like that. If you spend years making "jokes" about insurrection, you eventually find someone attacking congress.
[1] Edit to answer the question below: you are falsely equating harmless anarchic geeks of the 80's and 90's with violent terrorists. It's not appropriate to manage these communities using the same tools.
Perhaps the right tweet might do it. Trump has incited violence, explicitly and in subtext, before. So it's not a matter of a simple call-to-arms, like in the past, but then I'm not sure what would be the tipping point.
There's a contextual history of Trump wishing violence on people: journalists, apprehended criminals, etc. -- it suggests, and it does not have to be "beyond a reasonable doubt", that Trump is OK with having violence deployed against his enemies and that, with the context of speaking to a bunch of gun-toting reactionaries, he is speaking through a lens where the employment of their guns is thus reasonable.
Further, in that speech quoted, Trump specifically says to his followers that Democrats should not be voting.
The Facebook issue seems to be that Trump (and other politicians world-wide?) are getting special treatment from moderation.
I think that Trump's "When the looting starts, the shooting starts" comment is not incitement to violence of the kind that is a crime; but it sure as hell is inappropriate for any popular politician, head of the government or Armed Forces commander; especially so for the POTUS to say. What I am saying is that I believe the comment could very well lead to bullets being fired without proper justification. As for whether it should be censored, and whether it must be censored; I don't know.
Why is this being parroted in every thread? Do you realize the trend was not itself a threat but a discussion about Trump supporters at the capitol calling for the hanging? The words are alarming without that context—- which I believe is why Twitter had it removed—-but surely discussing and condemning someone else’s hateful expressions is not the same as expressing those things yourself.
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