The donald has done many contemptible things in 3 years, and the Senate has protected him along party lines. If tRump carries through with his threat and tries to shut down Twitter for contradicting him, how might he do it? Is there any legal fig leaf he could hide behind? Think it could get him successfully impeached and convicted?
He already did get impeached once. What makes you think it would go any differently this time?
The final straw will be the vote in November. Until then, he’s not going anywhere.
His supporters think he is a great guy for threatening to shut down Twitter, after all it is a liberal media organization. I don’t believe he could do it even if he really tried(as opposed to his usual big talk) and I don’t think he will actually try.
Threatening Twitter is mild compared to Russian/Ukraine interference or the fact that his incompetence got many thousands of Americans killed by virus.
If those things didn’t get him kicked out of office, this won’t.
It’s an empty threat. He is unable to shut down Twitter. Trumpists know he can’t do it, but exclaim it because they want to troll everyone else. Feel free to say “it’s an empty threat; he is unable to shut down Twitter”, and then ignore the trolls. Justice is best served in the voting booth.
Pretty much what Pleonast said. I’m unsure why anyone…Trump supporter or most fervent detractor…would take ANYTHING Trump says at this point without more salt than is in the sea. One has but to look at the vast difference during this virus pandemic between what Trump says and what he and his administration actually does. Or on any other subject. He often SAYS what he thinks people, generally his base, what’s the hear. But what he actually does is often directly contradictory or vastly different.
In this case, take a deep breath and a step back and think…HOW would Trump shut down Twitter? How would he be able too? Or, how would any generic president do it? What would they use to do it? How would they get it through? I can’t think of any way, unless they have some serious dirt on Twitter or any similar company. And by the time they could do whatever legal shenanigan’s you or more legally or Constitutionally oriented 'dopers could think of he’d be out of office. He’s not king after all…he can’t simply snap his fingers and make it so.
Basically, my rule of thumb with most politicians and with Trump always is to use my lie detector. It’s pretty simple…are his lips moving? Or is his text finger twitching? if so, then the lie detector goes off and I know…for a fact…that he’s lying. Try it out and see if it works for you. With Trump, you can go a bit further. Is he still alive? Then your lie detector should be ringing like a gong. I’ve had to recalibrate mine several times to keep it from exploding, so make sure you take steps to prevent that.
He might be able to reduce their protection from legal action over content ‘published’ by them.
How would he do that?
Well, the EU did (though it took time there too), but I’m not seeing how this would work in the US. I think it would violate the Constitution, or at a minimum be enough in doubt that it would have to slog through the court system. The US isn’t the EU, and Trump can’t just do this because he’s got a bug up his butt.
By what means does this Republican anti-regulation politician plan to shut down a company? “Executive Order” will not be accepted as a valid answer.
Trump doesn’t want to shut down Twitter, he loves Twitter. He just wants to bend it to his will. We don’t need to delve into what legal or regulatory pretext he could use, Trump has always fancied himself more of a mob-boss than an executive. Provided he doesn’t lose interest in this vendetta, his plan is to make examples of enough executives that anyone at Twitter who opposes him either quits or agrees to do as he wishes, simply out of self-preservation. How many daily death threats would YOU endure for your job?
This gets into the difference between what he thinks/wants and reality, though. Sure, he wants to be a mob boss, and wants to bend them to his will. He wants a lot of things. But how would he do that? He’s got no ability to force Twitter to do anything, except, maybe, not ban his account. He could, of course, use the Bully Pulpit (and I use that term with all the irony I can), and he probably will, but I have to think…how many of his faithful followers are really Twitter users, and how many are willing to give up their accounts to help him with his fit of pique? I’m thinking some…but even if all of them did, I doubt that’s more than a few percentage points of total users.
So, if I’m getting this straight, the White House is bitterly complaining that attaching fact checks to otherwise unaltered Tweets is somehow inhibiting free speech, while that same White House, through an official spokesperson, is inciting mob action against a Twitter employee for exercising that same right of free speech.
Nice.
How is Twitter a “liberal media organization?”
It fact-checked Trump.
sorry I wasn’t clear. I don’t think it is a liberal media organization but have a bunch of Trump supporting friends who say it is. And of course the liberal media is anti Trump.
You should point out that Twitter does not push any news of their own. They are merely a platform for anyone to say what they want (liberal or conservative or whatever). And that very much includes president Trump using it to push his message and reach his base.
If you count the bots that swarm Twitter I’d wager it is more conservative as a means to advance a conservative agenda.
Twitter is only complicit in its unwillingness to police such things (their numbers are hugely inflated because of those bots which means more $$$ for them).
Use a rational argument on a Trump supporter? No thanks, that would be just another waste of time. I do agree with you though.
As I read somewhere, and I think it’s a good analogy, his tweets are like shining a laser pointer elsewhere, and we’re the cats pouncing for it.