He may have had the biggest *** for a defensive lineman, but nobody's *** was bigger than Nate Newton's.
Post-Trump GOP
- Thread starter BrntOrngStmpeDe
- Start date
He may have had the biggest *** for a defensive lineman, but nobody's *** was bigger than Nate Newton's.
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
Facebook will extend the Trump ban until at least 2023.
Trump responded as expected. He claimed the decision was an "insult", said he was being "silenc[ed]" while his press release was cited by most major media outlets, then went into pigeon mode claiming future victory. Not sure what he'll win but winning is a recurring theme for Trump.
Trump responded as expected. He claimed the decision was an "insult", said he was being "silenc[ed]" while his press release was cited by most major media outlets, then went into pigeon mode claiming future victory. Not sure what he'll win but winning is a recurring theme for Trump.
Horn2RunAgain
2,500+ Posts
Suppression of thoughts and expressions. Facebook is quite the leader in this area
My wife is on Facebook, there's plenty of vile and ugly stuff on there. "Weak sauce" as one here like to post--, in regards to facebook
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
I'm sure it's out there. The only "vile and ugly" stuff that shows up in my feed is from my Trump Supporter uncle in Nebraska. Maybe I'm more fortunate than most based on the FB algorithm.
OUBubba
5,000+ Posts
We agree again. He’s got a gun to everyone’s head.
He does, but overtly political social media bans give him more power within the party, because many feel the need to rally to him. I don't necessarily have a problem with him being banned, but considering who they don't ban, it's pretty clear that the fact that he posts bad stuff is a pretext for the ban, not the sincere reason.
Horn2RunAgain
2,500+ Posts
No gun to my head. And I consider him "one of the leaders" of the GOP
Hyperbole seems to be your game lately
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
Like encouraging seditious activities?
In terms of content, social media is dirtier than a Nuevo Laredo donkey show. They allow all kinds of terrible stuff.
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
My Facebook and Twitter habits must be quite different than y'alls. The algorithms don't push any seriously dirty stuff to me. I'm certain it's there though.
Trump's problem was he's too popular, too many followers. If he's an average joe posting what he posted nobody cares about it. With millions of followers and a cadre of reposts they get attention and show significant influence.
Should the leader of Iran be held accountable too, as an example? Yes. I don't know if his account has been suspended too or not, or where it sits in the policy infraction process.
With hundreds of millions of users it's not possible to hold everyone to the Trump standard nor economically feasible. Though, from a private company perspective if you have the opportunity to positively moderate the behavior of your customer base while only impacting a single customer don't you leap at that chance?
The problem is that fairness and evenhandedness matter as much as stopping one inflammatory account even if it's a big account like Trump's. If they aren't consistent then their supposed "standards" aren't going to be taken seriously.
It also doesn't help that their actions always seem to go one way. If they jump all over Alex Jones for making up stupid **** up but have to be dragged kicking and screaming to deal with Louis Farrakhan and worse, Islamic fundamentalists in the Middle East who post horrific things and sometimes directly advocate violence, it's hard to take the company seriously.
These rulings also seem vague and arbitrary. Frankly I'm not even sure what the post or posts were that got him banned. In the media coverage, I've seen almost no specificity on that.
Again, they can be arbitrary if they want to. They're a private company, but I'm not going to take them seriously when they claim to be righteous about stopping inflammatory rhetoric.
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
Just playing devil's advocate...
Do they? Plenty of ISIS accounts and other bad **** gets removed. The difference is you don't have a large ecosystem of media proclaiming bias. We all agree that ISIS related accounts should be deplatformed thus when the social media companies do it gets only a minor mention. Never does it get mentioned in the conservative media alongside the Alex Jones ban because it doesn't fit the desired narrative. The narrative is that ONLY conservative sources are being silenced. Without a thorough analysis of all bans it's impossible to say that's fact or fiction. I'd bet my house that progressive leaning accounts have been banned. Pointing to a single account like Farrakhan is simply showing an inconsistency.
I'd agree there. Clearly the size of the audience matters and I wish they'd be open about that. You can say crazy **** and avoid the ban until lots of people start sharing your crazy rambings.
Do they? Plenty of ISIS accounts and other bad **** gets removed. The difference is you don't have a large ecosystem of media proclaiming bias. We all agree that ISIS related accounts should be deplatformed thus when the social media companies do it gets only a minor mention. Never does it get mentioned in the conservative media alongside the Alex Jones ban because it doesn't fit the desired narrative. The narrative is that ONLY conservative sources are being silenced. Without a thorough analysis of all bans it's impossible to say that's fact or fiction. I'd bet my house that progressive leaning accounts have been banned. Pointing to a single account like Farrakhan is simply showing an inconsistency.
I'd agree there. Clearly the size of the audience matters and I wish they'd be open about that. You can say crazy **** and avoid the ban until lots of people start sharing your crazy rambings.
Horn2RunAgain
2,500+ Posts
Last I saw FB (February, my wife's acct) the anti Trump posts were vile, vulgar and totally uncalled for. Those weren't taken down
OUBubba
5,000+ Posts
The issue is the application of the alleged standards. It is possible for a progressive to get banned on social media. It does happen, but the leash is much looser. After a pretty lenghty period of ISIS using social media to help them wage war, kidnap and murder people, and then post videos of them getting burned to death or having their heads severed, social media companies did block them. To my knowledge, Trump, Alex Jones, and hell, David Duke haven't done anything like that, but they're being treated like those who have. What they have done is spout a lot of stupid stuff, incorrect stuff, and say nice things about people who did bad things. Well, there's a lot of gray and a lot of subjective judgment calls in that, and it's impossible to come up with any kind of real standard for that sort of thing. Plenty of people do those things, and plenty of people with big followings do them and have no action taken against them at all. Jack Dorsey has addressed the nutty stuff the Ayatollah says (which would make Trump look like a choir boy), and he dismisses it as "sabre-rattling."
And again, they can do this. They can be arbitrary about the enforcement of their rules. These are private companies with no obligation to the government or to private entities other than what's in their agreements with them. However, I'm not going to give them unearned and undeserved respect or take them seriously when they claim any sort of moral authority or credibility. They don't have either. They are private businesses doing whatever the hell they want, and that's OK with me so long as they're honest about it.
I'm not really talking about the size of the audience factor (though that's clearly a real issue). I'm talking about the specificity of the allegation. If I sue somebody, I have to specify in legal documents exactly what they did or failed to do that was wrong and state how it's wrong under the laws. I haven't seen that done with the Trump ban. I haven't seen them specify the offending post and specify exactly how it violates their rules. The most I've heard is that he said generally nice things about the Capitol rioters. Well, people say nice things about Hamas who shoots rockets at civilians. People say nice things about rioters destroying property and beating innocent people all summer. People say nice things about the Chinese Communist Party that's doing its best Reinhard Heydrich impersonation on the Uyghurs. Have those people been banned or even sanctioned for doing so? Not that I'm aware of.
Ultimately, I think this is all stupid and arrogant. Social media companies are trying to take on a role they can't possibly take on. They're trying to install guardrails on public discourse that are much tighter than the legal limits on them, and they're trying to be the arbiters of what's true and what's false. I understand why they want to. There's respect and grandeur that comes with it, but they can't do it. It's not just that they're not perfect at it. They're bad at it, and it's massively destructive to public trust and discourse when they get it wrong.
Look at what happened with the banning of posts about Covid being made in a lab and leaked. Nobody really knew where Covid came from, but they banned posts suggesting that it came from a lab - treating it as if it was thorougly disproven when it never was or even close to being so. It was always a very plausible scenario, and there were always reputable people saying it. That sort of thing is frightening to me, because the people trying to be the ultimate arbiters of what's true and what's false demonstrated that not only do they not know what's true or false, they don't even know what it means or what it looks like for something is proven true or false.
Rather than trying to play God about the truth, it's far better to adopt Justice Louis Brandeis's approach. Absent an immediate emergency, a free society, country, or culture should always choose more speech to combat a falsehood or alleged falsehood than enforced silence. More speech is always more likely to find the truth than suppression of the alleged falsehood, especially when the allegation of falsehood turns out to be (and actually was always) ********.
Seattle Husker
10,000+ Posts
Recognizing that DeSantis has become a darling of the right, is anyone else surprised that he actually came out ahead, even if only by a smidgen, of Trump in this most recent straw poll? How soon until Trump turns on DeSantis? Given there is a very strong overlap in base between Trump and DeSantis it will be interesting to see how the chips fall.
Horn2RunAgain
2,500+ Posts
Everyone turned on poor ole Joe in the debates. Castro in particular, but they all did. It happens, part of the process. Shouldn't be, but it is
OUBubba
5,000+ Posts
Trump will cut his achilles.
I think it depends on Trump's real intentions. If he doesn't plan to run again, then I don't think he'll turn on him. He'd gain more out of being able to say, "Ron's a beautiful man with very big hands, but he won because I supported him (if DeSantis wins) and because I got him elected governor. Without me, he would have lost both races. He owes everything to me."
If Trump does plan to run again, then I think he'll turn on him, but I don't think that'll happen soon. (Straw polls aren't that significant.) I think he'll wait until he starts getting closer to the primary season. He'll start with the classic Trump semi-passive comments like, "you know a lot of people in Florida tell me Ron didn't handle Covid as well as he says" and other similar "a lot of people tell me" remarks that can't be verified or directly attributed to Trump if they're wrong or at least questionable. Then when the primary season is in full swing, Trump or Ron Stone will float a rumor that DeSantis wears women's underwear, used to be a chick, is actually Lee Harvey Oswald's nephew, or something like that when it'll be too late for DeSantis to repair the damage.
But I think this invites another question. If Trump declares his candidacy, would DeSantis even run? He'd end up in a huge fight with Trump that would damage him with the base if he fights back too hard and hurt his general election prospects if he has to try to "out-nut" Trump to win the nomination. Just seems like a very high-risk move for him that likely wouldn't end well. And keep in mind that he's only 42. He literally has 30 more years during which he could run. It would probably make more sense to wait out Trump who obviously can't stick with this for more than one election, and of course if he happens to win in '24, he'll be legally barred from running again.
There is selective enforcement of honesty going on. It's pretty damn obvious. Anyone who believes Liberals do not lie is kidding themselves.
Maybe Facebook has cynically decided that the level of Liberal lying as contrasted to Trump's is a stipulation that is acceptable. But who are they to decide? And is the enforcement merely for the lying or the ideology? I suppose they are the owners of the platform and in theory can allow or deny access at will. In general, I'm ok with that except if it's a clear violation of civil rights discrimination.
But we know the stakes involved here and the media is controlling the message and editing the content and they are not guided by honesty but instead by doctrine. And in the hands of a zealot, an end justifies the means doctrine is a tool wielded by those who are uncompromising and unable to control their zealotry.
Maybe Facebook has cynically decided that the level of Liberal lying as contrasted to Trump's is a stipulation that is acceptable. But who are they to decide? And is the enforcement merely for the lying or the ideology? I suppose they are the owners of the platform and in theory can allow or deny access at will. In general, I'm ok with that except if it's a clear violation of civil rights discrimination.
But we know the stakes involved here and the media is controlling the message and editing the content and they are not guided by honesty but instead by doctrine. And in the hands of a zealot, an end justifies the means doctrine is a tool wielded by those who are uncompromising and unable to control their zealotry.
I still think that Trump will not run again for POTUS, but will be happy to be the kingmaker for the GOP. IMHO, people who voted against Trump in 2020 were voting against his personality and style, not against his policies - now, with Biden in office, they now have a President with an acceptable personality and style, but totally unacceptable policies from the far left. IMO, Trump will realize that the best way to secure his legacy (and serve the country at the same time) will be to find a candidate with (a) an acceptable personality and style and (b) acceptable policies and goals. If Trump can find that candidate and support him, the GOP will win.
This is obviously the smart take and likely choice of action. But you never know, and I think Trump wants to keep his opponents guessing till the end.
I fully understand liking DeSantis. I like him, but why is this a reason to like him over Trump who launched the 1776 Commission and didn't have the power to do much more at the federal level? (Obviously I have my reasons to like DeSantis more, but you all say my reasons are ********.)
OUBubba
5,000+ Posts
A. Communism is a hat tip to the fear mongerers.
B. How can you people not see that the closest thing we have to totalitarianism in this country is the relatively large % of the populace that would have moist pants if Michael Flynn rode into DC on a tank, took over the capitol like they tried on 1/6, and put Trump back in office?
A. When you take money from an innocent man by virtue of power and in the name of egalitarianism then that is a form of communism; especially the blame on the innocent and the attempt to bait him into admitting he is at fault by virtue of a compliant media and aggressive communists.
Why would you take an innocent man, seize his money and destroy his well prepared, well disciplined and well executed lifetime plan (over 40 years) to care for his children and his retirement and not be a burden on that state? Who would do that? A Marxist. A Communist.
B. I don't know about that large %. There are some lunatics that would like that but not one person I know would have supported an overthrow of the election.
The thing about a compliant Leftist media is that they will downplay ANTIFA and make the idiots who entered the capital appear to be spread all across the fruited plain. What do you really believe?
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