Said Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, quoted in "Meta to Reinstate Trump’s Facebook and Instagram Accounts/Donald Trump had been barred from the social media platforms after the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol. Twitter reinstated him last year" (NYT).
I agree that "The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying — the good, the bad and the ugly — so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box." But why did it suddenly become true for Clegg? I've got to presume Meta recalculated its interests.
Clegg hedges, reserving the power to kick Trump and others out again, when the calculation changes, but at least he said "clear" — "clear risk of real world harm" — and acknowledges a "high bar."
ADDED: Here's where the exception swallows the rule: "harm." It could encompass hurt feelings and lost economic opportunities — and lost elections. The modifier "real world" doesn't keep "harm" from including the ordinary consequences of effective speech. Then, "clear risk" isn't much of a limitation. You could have a clear 5% risk. I appreciate the Clegg at least mouthed a commitment to free speech and purported to set a high bar, but there really is no assurance at all. There are words to be thrown in his face the next time Meta kicks out somebody we care about, but he'll have words to use to say they followed their commitment to the letter.
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"clear risk of real world harm"
I think Vox just had something on this but I can't find it. Every one of the foot soldiers and minions of "the idea" known as antifa still have their Facebook accounts, and if they don't it's because they themselves deleted them. They're in insta and vine and twitter too, in Atlanta and Boston last week burning stuff down and assualting citizens and police. Every single doped-up dysgenic powah-2-peepo-persyn within their "idea's" hierarchy. Hell...they even write press releases.
"High bar"...aye aye Captain Clegg.
When commenters say "It's not censorship if it's a private entity doing it," remember that these platforms - all of them, as far as we know - took their direction from government. Without expertise to make such decisions, they simply took government's word that anyone who contradicted the government's narrative was engaging in "misinformation or disinformation." And they all (with the exception now of Twitter) subscribe to the belief that individual opinions should be expressed only at the sufferance of the state. Any current notions of tolerance are subject to immediate retraction, since the communication of opinions is acknowledged to be privilege and not a right.
after the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol
Disinformation, misinformation, or malinformation? Who censures the censors.
Shameless. They’re losing $ and need the agitation from others than he elicits.
If I had to guess, Mr. Clegg's new standard -- "clear risk of real world harm" -- will be translated, in practice, as "clear risk of real harm to left-wing interests."
And the folks at Meta/Facebook won't regard that as a change of policy, because in their calculation, harm to left-wing interests is the same as real world harm. How can you tell the difference?
The people at "Meta" can meditate on the fact that no one "stormed the capital" on J6. (we just learned that the officer who was "murdered" on J6, or injured by the protesters was in fact "gassed" by his own side, became ill, and went back to the police station)
Trump was thrown off social media because Zuckerberg, and execs at Apple, Twitter, and Google, hated his guts. And his supporters. They're still leftists. And they still hate Trump. So why are they letting him back on? We'll need to have a Elon Musk type buy facebook to find out.
As shown by the "twitter files" pretty much everything Jack Dorsey and his gang told us publicly about Trump and banning Conservatives/others was untrue or only half of the truth. I doubt Google/Facebook/Apple are much better.
If, for example, there was the possibility that Trump might be re-elected. That would be the sort of high bar we are talking about.
"Clegg hedges, reserving the power to kick Trump and others out again ..."
That's the thing about a Sword of Damocles. It has to be hanging over a person to be effective. You can't threaten to kick Trump off Facebook if Trump is already kicked off Facebook.
The way that you control politicians is to be the person who can decide whether or not they can be deplatformed. This has always been true, all the way back to William Randolf Hearst. The "mainstream" media were the gatekeepers for a while (CBS, NBC, ABC) ... at the moment it's the tech billionaires. Tomorrow it will be the arms dealers most likely.
I sure hope Ron DeSantis is paying attention. He's going to need to break these people's backs. Threatening the President of the United States with cutting him off of Facebook (or any other national communication platform) is a threat to our national security and to our Republic (notice, I didn't say Democracy).
A threat that rightly calls for the nationalization of these platforms and the confiscation of their ill-gotten gains.
Translation: We calculate there is now more money to be made with Trump unmuzzled.
Interpretation: No thank you, forever & ever.
Not to worry, he'll be banned again just as soon as it suits their purposes.
Come campaign time, if he comes out of the Republican primary, as it gets closer to the election, they'll remove him again. Then all of this will again be seen for what it is: Bullshit.
A high bar the height of a low bar?
Meta could use the traffic Trump May bring. I got out my Oculus 2 system yesterday and was annoyed. Every app needed update and, after update, log back in with 2 factor authentication tat meant taking off the VR to log into phone and get code. Back in the VR, it has gone to sleep, so get it back on, go to app, add in code, and finally get an app experience not quite as good as my tablet. I’m not sure Trump can save Meta.
Big Tech's support for free speech - the good, the bad, and the non-leftist - appears to be inversely proportional to the closeness of a significant election.
Who appointed Herr Clegg the Decider of "clear risk of real world harm"?
Just where do these anonymous assholes get their vastly overblown sense of their authority?
Think back to the callow twenty-somethings at Facebook and Twitter deciding that eminent epidemiologists and other public health experts disagreeing with Fauci et al were not just wrong, but "dangerous"?
In a just world a million such creeps would have ankles broken off in their asses as they are kicked to the crub.
What Robert Marshall said.
He's got it exactly right.
Oh, he's the President of Global Affairs, huh? Must be a pretty important guy. Of course, this whole planet wouldn't make a pimple on my butt, so ... Global, right?
A sufficient explanation:
A year ago today, Meta's stock price was around $300 a share.
Today it is around $140.
Meanwhile, last weekend Twitter censored the new BBC documentary about Modi in India ... Musk seems more than happy to dance to the tune called by Indian politicians.
When I heard that Trump was going to be let back on Facebook and Instagram, I figured the left wanted him to have as large a megaphone as possible to damage DeSantis with stupid nicknames. It's a lot like in 2016, where they are going to promote Trump because they think he is more beatable and then, when the time comes, more easy to demonize.
When Facebook banned Trump, I quit Facebook.
I wonder how many other people did so. I think Facebook must have estimated the number.
Nick Clegg is also the former deputy prime minister and the leader of the Liberal Democrats, for whatever that is worth.
rcocean at 5:30 PM
no one "stormed the capital" on J6
There are lots of videos showing people storming the capitol on January 6.
There are also lots of videos showing unknown men with bullhorns directing people to "storm" the Capitol. NONE of those men got arrested, and the J6 committee are praising Epps. (One of the biggest instigators) What does THAT tell you??
There are lots of videos showing people storming the capitol on January 6.
Whitmer-event? Democrat "heroes" and "kickers"? Which way were they headed?
lots of videos showing unknown men with bullhorns directing people to "storm" the Capitol
A probable Whitmer-event.
"harm" notice that facebook and the rest had no problem with Antifa and BLM organizing actual riots and no problem with islamist clergy calling for jihad or terrorism against the west. No problem with doxing supreme court justices. It is "harm (as we define it) against our friends".
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