US Politics: 2 Fash 2 Impeach

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Just judging by twitters past behavior I'd say they will err on the side of techbro-libertarian both sides-ism and if he's not convicted, will give him the account back by this summer.  Especially if he runs for office again (I don't think he will).

I'd say the opposite.  If he doesn't run/isn't running, I'm inclined to agree pressure to uphold the ban will dwindle.  But that pressure will be reignited if he runs again, including among their own employees.

And I don't think him not being convicted has much to do with it.  Everybody knows he's not going to be convicted and the CFO just affirmed the ban.

[Kalbear]

27 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Hopefully that's what the criminal indictments for his shady business crap would do. If he's convicted in open court for any of that stuff his chances of being elected to anything other than the Mar-a-Largo town council (if that's a thing) are shot.

Hah no. Being a criminal is a badge of honor for him. He'll probably get more popular if he gets convicted of something, especially in like New York. 

23 minutes ago, DMC said:

I just think your logic here is amusing.  So let's assume Twitter is run by feckless amoral executives that will change course due to any public pressure.  I know shit about them, but I'm perfectly willing to accept that.  There's still going to be pressure both to uphold and overturn the ban - likely in somewhat equal quantity and even intensity.  And the most likely thing you do by affirming the ban is permanent - as opposed to remaining ambiguous - is increase the pressure on you to do so.

They make more money with him on Twitter.

And note that it's not specifically public pressure that matters here; it's political and economic pressure. They care fuck all about public pressure. Right now there is a lot of economic pressure on Twitter to keep him off - but that's going to fade. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, KalbearAnon said:

And note that it's not specifically public pressure that matters here; it's political and economic pressure.

The pressure to uphold the ban is every bit political and economic.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

48 minutes ago, KalbearAnon said:

Definitely watch the Nickelodeon stream

 

 

Told ya'll sliming stiffs in suits would be a smashing hit. 

[Kalbear]

Just now, DMC said:

The pressure to uphold the ban is every bit political and economic.

Right now? Sure. After Trump's exonerated? A lot of that is going to go away. I suspect Facebook will be first to give him back his stuff, along with probably youtube. Then twitter will cave. 

[DMC]

1 minute ago, KalbearAnon said:

After Trump's exonerated? A lot of that is going to go away.

Like I said, I don't know why you're anticipating some shift in pressure if he's "exonerated."  Everyone already knows he's not going to be convicted.  And, like I said, I'd agree if he doesn't run that pressure will dwindle in the common "who gives a shit?" way.  But definitely not if he runs again.

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

I suspect that recordings are being made of everything said this afternoon and people will be studying them for the next few years to determine what they did wrong. So they get it right in the next attack.

As is he, to make sure he gets back the power forever in 2024.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

And this is why you don't have people that old in major positions of power. 

[Gertrude]

Just now, Tywin et al. said:

And this is why you don't have people that old in major positions of power. 

Yeah, this is embarrassing.

[Kalbear]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Like I said, I don't know why you're anticipating some shift in pressure if he's "exonerated."  Everyone already knows he's not going to be convicted.  And, like I said, I'd agree if he doesn't run that pressure will dwindle in the common "who gives a shit?" way.  But definitely not if he runs again.

Everyone doesn't know that, and more importantly a whole lot of organizations cannot behave as if they 'know' that even if they do actually. So Facebook, twitter et al have to look like they're dealing with it fairly, even though they know it's bullshit. 

But after he's exonerated? Facebook can say 'he was tried, found innocent, and he should get the rights that every single person on our platform does, because we are awesome yay!' And that'll start the changes. And even more, they'll look magnanimous and fair, because they waited for a trial and stuff! Ya know, due process, etc. 

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, KalbearAnon said:

Right now? Sure. After Trump's exonerated? A lot of that is going to go away. I suspect Facebook will be first to give him back his stuff, along with probably youtube. Then twitter will cave. 

I highly doubt this. People were laughing after he was banned, saying accounts would fall in number and Twitter would lose money after they banned Trump. Look at all the business Trump sent them!

Twitter just reported their numbers this week. They had a big increase in new accounts (though they warned they don’t know if they can repeat that increase) and a big increase in revenues, that magic, magic word. Because it turns out once Twitter became less controversial, less crazy, more advertisers joined on! That will keep Trump off.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, KalbearAnon said:

Everyone doesn't know that, and more importantly a whole lot of organizations cannot behave as if they 'know' that even if they do actually. So Facebook, twitter et al have to look like they're dealing with it fairly, even though they know it's bullshit.

First, yes, in terms of the economic and political pressure to uphold the ban, virtually everyone applying such pressure knows he's not going to get convicted.  Second, I don't know why you're tying Trump's ban with impeachment in the first place.  He was banned before he was impeached (again).

[Mindwalker]

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

I see no reason to worry that mainstream social media companies will life their bans. More likely something new will rise up to let him get his message out, but his reach will probably never be what it was leading up to the 2016 elections and during his presidency. 

[Kalbear]

35 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

I highly doubt this. People were laughing after he was banned, saying accounts would fall in number and Twitter would lose money after they banned Trump. Look at all the business Trump sent them!

Twitter just reported their numbers this week. They had a big increase in new accounts (though they warned they don’t know if they can repeat that increase) and a big increase in revenues, that magic, magic word. Because it turns out once Twitter became less controversial, less crazy, more advertisers joined on! That will keep Trump off.

You're reporting on their Q4 earnings call, which happened before he was banned. Let's wait and see what their revenue is in Q1 2021, shall we?

36 minutes ago, DMC said:

First, yes, in terms of the economic and political pressure to uphold the ban, virtually everyone applying such pressure knows he's not going to get convicted.  Second, I don't know why you're tying Trump's ban with impeachment in the first place.  He was banned before he was impeached (again).

Okay, I'll explain it better. 

Twitter doesn't want to ban Trump. Neither does facebook. It's bad for their business. As long as they can not ban Trump or the cost of not banning Trump isn't too insane, they'll do so. 

They caved to political and economic pressure to ban him after January 6th. They didn't want to do that (because ya know, they could have done it before) but they did. Still don't want to do it, mind you. But they did. Facebook banned him indefinitely, twitter supposedly forever. But again - didn't want to.

But now we have a trial based around his behavior specifically on social media. A large portion of the trial is talking deliberately about the actions he took on twitter. Social media can't do anything while the trial is going on - what, are they going to say 'we know it's rigged so we're going to unban him'? Please. But they can wait until the sham trial is done, and then they can say 'welp, he got his day in court, guess we'll unban him'. 

Because again, they didn't want to ban him. They didn't want to ban proud boys or 3% or any of that. They like having more people on, even if they're toxic (or perhaps BECAUSE they're toxic). 

So why did they say 'lifetime ban applies'? Because they're not great at this, at least twitter isn't. Facebook is better and hasn't made any claim like that. Twitter felt a bit more pressure from that incitement category, but when Facebook caves, they will too. 

[DMC]

21 minutes ago, KalbearAnon said:

But now we have a trial based around his behavior specifically on social media.

The ellipse rally was not just on social media.  

Anyway, I accepted your premise already.  You've yet to provide reasoning for why the pressure that convinced twitter to ban him is going to go away once he's convicted.  But whatever, I don't have a firm position on what will happen with Twitter in the future. 

I definitely don't know enough about Twitter executives to try to anticipate their behavior, plus I don't think it's clear at all whether Trump's going to run again or not.  I just find your insistence that "oh they just confirmed the ban is permanent, obviously this means they'll renege on that in two weeks" amusing. 

One thing I will say, as someone who doesn't have the latter and never uses the former, is that it definitely does not seem to me that just because Facebook will restore his account (which I agree they probably will) means Twitter will follow suit.  They seem to clearly have different tacks on this sort of thing to me, which is almost certainly due to differences in their consumer base.

21 minutes ago, KalbearAnon said:

You're reporting on their Q4 earnings call, which happened before he was banned. Let's wait and see what their revenue is in Q1 2021, shall we?

Well, the CFO's full statement on that wasn't just Q4:

Quote

“We added 40 million people to our DAU [daily active user count] last year, and 5 million last quarter,” Segal said. “In January, we added more DAU than the average of the last four Januarys, so hopefully that gives people a sense for the momentum we’ve got from all the hard work we’ve done on the service.”

 

[Fragile Bird]

29 minutes ago, KalbearAnon said:

You're reporting on their Q4 earnings call, which happened before he was banned. Let's wait and see what their revenue is in Q1 2021, shall we?

Actually, while giving their earnings report they said they saw a surge of activity in the month of January, I should have been clearer.

Quote

In its earnings report Tuesday, the company provided a unique disclosure on user growth in the current quarter, saying it saw above average growth throughout the month despite “unusual circumstances.”

Although Twitter didn’t explicitly say what those “unusual circumstances” were, it’s not hard to figure out. Twitter permanently banned Trump on Jan. 8 after he continued to post messages encouraging and defending the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6. The company also permanently banned thousands of accounts tied to the Qanon movement around the same time.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/twitter-really-wants-you-to-know-itll-be-just-fine-after-banning-trump.html?&qsearchterm=twitter

[Kalbear]

17 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Actually, while giving their earnings report they said they saw a surge of activity in the month of January, I should have been clearer.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/10/twitter-really-wants-you-to-know-itll-be-just-fine-after-banning-trump.html?&qsearchterm=twitter

I think  that another way to interpret that is that them banning thousands of bot accounts and shitposters meant they...created new accounts. In any case, their revenue growth wasn't part of the banning at all per that report - only their account signup increasing. 

And hey - maybe I'm wrong, and the entire social media structure around engagement is actually wrong and people enjoy being on platforms that don't have constant doom. That's possible! But I think it's more likely that someone who had 80m followers would be a net win for their company's ad revenue. 

[Lollygag]

Former Republican officials in talks to form center-right anti-Trump party: report

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/538362-former-republicans-in-talks-to-form-center-right-anti-trump-party

Quote

A contingent of former Republican officials are in talks to form a political party that would break away from supporters of former President Trump, Reuters reported on Wednesday.

More than 120 people were on a call on the matter on Friday, including former government employees who worked under the Trump administration, the Reagan administration and both Bush White House's as well as former GOP members of Congress.

...

“Large portions of the Republican Party are radicalizing and threatening American democracy,” McMullin told Reuters. “The party needs to recommit to truth, reason and founding ideals or there clearly needs to be something new.”

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Lollygag said:

Former Republican officials in talks to form center-right anti-Trump party: report

https://thehill.com/homenews/news/538362-former-republicans-in-talks-to-form-center-right-anti-trump-party

Literally nothing will come of this. Maybe they win a few random seats in the House, at best. Yay?