Terms of Service
Jay Willis at GQ says Twitter had oughta shut down Donnie’s Twitter before he sets off the nuclear holocaust.
One of the biggest irritants to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, apparently, has been Donald Trump’s “provocations” on social media. The country’s vice foreign minister ominously declared that the president “makes trouble” with his “aggressive” tweets, warning that his government is ready for war if Trump wants the same. Here’s the evidence, complete with an inane “U.S.A.” coda, like Trump briefly got caught up in another late-night viewing of that 30 for 30 about the Miracle on Ice:
The “U.S.A.” is a strikingly stupid touch – as if this were a god damn football game, or a plain old unsublimated undisguised dick-waving contest.
Thankfully, there is a hero who could, in theory, help save the world from suffering an ignominious death by tweet: Twitter, which could suspend or [shudders in delight at the mere possibility] ban him altogether. Here, straight from the Twitter Rules, which are incorporated by reference into the Terms of Service:
You may not make threats of violence; it’s right there. I don’t see a clause that says “unless you’re the president of the US.” That’s very sensible, because presidents should especially not make threats of violence, because they have the means to carry them out. If presidents are going to make threats of violence they need to do that through the proper channels, which do not include Twitter.
(And seriously. There’s a ragey kind of amusement in this but there’s a much profounder disgust. This childish incompetent lunatic is threatening nuclear war on Twitter. That’s where we are. Somehow we elected a childish incompetent lunatic president, and presidents can send nukes, so this is where we are. This narcissistic ignorant bullying bozo could destroy the planet just because he can’t stop running his horrible mouth.)
The president has, ahem, arguably used Twitter to violateseveral of these rules before. But for now, focus on that first bullet point. I realize that when Twitter’s lawyers put this thing together, “global nuclear war” was probably not within the scope of the “violence” that they intended to bar users from promoting. But I’m also going to go out on a limb here and say that that should probably count as violence. If, as here, there is evidence that the president is using Twitter to provoke a dangerous, war-happy nut job into putting millions of lives in jeopardy, it’s fair to ask whether the service should respond—for the good of humankind—by locking him down for a while.
It sounds jokey but…it isn’t. If only it were.
So the big question is, will Twitter have the guts to take on the ignorant bullying overgrown-baby President? (no offense meant to any actual babies that happen to read this site, and have a level of maturity well above that of our current president. Babies are fine – I just would rather they not become president, at least not until mature enough to learn impulse control).
” using Twitter to provoke a dangerous, war-happy nut job into putting millions of lives in jeopardy”
Sorry, but this sounds like Trump twittering to himself, not Kim Jong Un.
iknklast, I assume your question is rhetorical, because nNo way is Twitter going to risk its own demise by banning Trump.
Demise, you ask? Well, I’m no programmer, but my understanding is that there’s nothing particularly magical about Twitter’s proprietary software; competitors can and have set up something similar. What Twitter has going for it now is the network effect — people join and use Twitter because everybody else is using Twitter. When Milo was banned and a small group of alt-right doofuses loudly stomped off to a Twitter competitor whose name I can’t even remember, it made little difference, because they were a small group.
But if Trump was banned from Twitter, he’d probably jump on board with Generic Twitter Competitor. Journalists and others would feel compelled to join GTC also, just to keep tabs on him, and would inevitably try it out as well. Suddenly GTC’s numbers are swelling, it gets some new VC funding, and advertises extensively about how it is Twitter for people who like Freeze Peach. Which lures more Twitter users away, and suddenly tech journalists are writing headlines like “Is Twitter Becoming the New Myspace?”
A little far-fetched, perhaps. But Twitter isn’t going to run even a 1% risk of that happening.
Sadly, Twitter has already shown that it is incredibly reluctant to enforce its own rules. I think we can safely count on Twitter not being worthy of this hope.