For the past four years, our unhinged Commander-in-Chief has spent nearly every waking moment firing out visceral, acidic, hate speech like an inner city hydrant on a hot summer’s day. But the Powers-That-Be at Twitter remained an “Everest of Indifference.”
Beyond indifferent, actually; more like complicit.
With CEO Jack Dorsey taking numerous private meetings at the White House, the social media giant has given off the air of a company that not only holds the rest of us to a higher standard than the leader of the free world, but also has the orange idiot’s back.
After all, how can you explain suspending or terminating the accounts of countless thousands for the equivalent of jaywalking, while turning a thousand blind eyes to the serial murder of common decency.
Trump has used Twitter to spew hate speech, toss around hundreds of veiled (and not-so-veiled) threats to private citizens and companies and encouraged armed take-overs of State Capitals.
He has threatened violence should he lose in November, promoted unproven and possibly deadly drugs, spewed innumerable, unproven conspiracy theories, and, of course, there’s the classic suggestion we should all be injecting bleach.
Rather than holding the president to a higher standard than the rest of us, Twitter has inexplicably seen fit to hold him to a lower one. A virtually non-existent one, at that.
Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
….happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
Until today.
Twitter tepidly responded to Trump’s latest falsehood about mail-in election ballots with a “fact check” link on two Tweets.
Trump went ballistic and responded in typical fashion, with a conspiracy laden tirade.
“Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices,” Trump tweeted. “We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that …. happen again.”
“Twitter has now shown that everything we have been saying about them (and their other compatriots) is correct. Big action to follow!” he followed up. He even threatened to shut down the social media site.
Of course, has no such power. Chalk it up to just one more of the estimated 20,000 lies and misstatements he’s spread –often repeatedly–since taking office.
But Trump’s method was equal to his madness. He’s primarily intent on feeding another conspiracy theory that panders to his base.
Capitol Hill Republicans are now calling for Congressional oversight,labeling the company a “liberal tool.”
So far, however, Twitter has yet to respond to Trump’s most vicious and maligned Tweet storm yet– his slandering of MSNBC commentator Joe Scarborough.
Trump has suggested in several Tweets that Scarborough is somehow tied to the 2001 death of a young aide, Lori Klausutis, in his former congressional district office, even though he was thousands of miles away at the time in Washington.
Trump today (May 27) tweeted the conspiracy theory again, despite a barrage of criticism from Republican lawmakers, the media and the widower of the woman who died. Twitter has, so far, refused to removed the Tweet.
“Psycho Joe Scarborough is rattled, not only by his bad ratings but all of the things and facts that are coming out on the internet about opening a Cold Case,” the president tweeted. “He knows what is happening!”
Klausutis had an undiagnosed heart condition that caused her to faint. She fell and hit her head at work and was found dead the following morning. The medical examiner ruled her death an accident.
If Twitter is looking for praise or absolution for its past sins, it’s not getting it.
In the piece I wrote after having my account suspended for the third or fourth time, I mentioned speaking with a prominent attorney (I’d wanted to file a class action against Twitter for violating my first amendment rights to free speech).
The lawyer basically informed me that Twitter is not a State or Federal agency, therefore nothing could be done by any of us to force them to adhere to our first amendment rights. That steamed my clams.
I mean, here we are – Twitter’s most valuable – and ONLY asset, and they treat us like batteries in The Matrix.
Twitter uses us up and spits us out, without a second thought to our rights or, more importantly, their own responsibility to rein in a culture of idiots, of haters, of unhinged conspiracy-pushing lunatics.
Not to mention, we’re forced to sit back and watch as scum like Moscow Mitch, Bill Barr, Devin Nunes, Lindsey Graham, etc, etc, commit open treason. But call them out on it, and you’re banned.
The above notwithstanding, I believe there is strength in numbers. The bigger they are, the harder their stock price falls when public outcry becomes deafening. To me, this is, and always will be, the way to get blood from the social media stone.
Proving my point is today’s example of Twitter bowing to public pressure and, although not deleting the lie, finally putting a “‘fact check” link at the bottom of the mango moron’s latest assault on the Truth and the upcoming election.
Not great, but as Bob Wylie says: “Baby steps.”
If these indifferent, arrogant ass-clowns in Silicon Valley think they can just sit back and count their Ferraris without any sort of oversight or guidelines, “We The People” have something to say about that.
And we’re just getting started.
I would highly recommend that the folks @Twitter take into account today’s latest shaming and learn from it. The last thing they want is a mob of protesters on the steps of Capitol Hill screaming about oversight… especially with a Democrat-controlled Congress.
“Power to the People!” isn’t just a catchy saying. When done right, it can move mountains.