O Pinions!

NO! but there are legitimate concerns

For:

GROUP

Blogging Circle of Friends   (E) A group for WDC bloggers. #1901868 by Lyn's a sly fox

Do you feel banning Trump on Twitter, Facebook,etc is only allowing one side to talk as some of the GOP is claiming? Is this opening a door to changing the US to a police state because we've invited censorship?

NO!

But there are concerns...

Lets get some FACTS straight.

President Trump, like any president, can hold a briefing or press conference. He can even make a national address. No one is stopping him. He can even issue directives and proclamations.

He hasn't been ignored nor hushed. He may very well have been called out. But that's not censorship.

Citizen Trump is quite aware of his brand, his profile. He has manipulated those around him including the press for decades. He will continue to do so.

He can write editorials, do talk shows on TV and radio. He's not about to shut up.

BUT, he doesn't get to break contracts, and social media, as well as any media, has contracts. Read the fine print here at WDC and answer the question whether he would've been tolerated for long. Imagine him attacking you or your fellow writer. Not happening.

Very few here at WDC have been banned. He would've been banned long ago, if only for slander and lies.

That said...

Censorship is a global and historical fact. Many cultures are top-down autocratic. China and Japan have always bowed to the Emperor of the Day. American less so. But the attitude towards the flag shows how Americans bow too.

Censorship is problematic in an Age when we are so closely connected, when false news from one country can topple a government in another. The Iraq War was just that. There were NO weapons of mass destruction. Personal truth has always beem merely one point-of-view and TRUTH is not always as valued.

However, the closing down of conspiracies and hate-mongering from social platforms, where they can easily be monitored, has lead to a migration into the Dark Web where it's harder.

On the other hand, it's easy to receive warnings from basefooq that makes one scratch one's head. There is little one can do about it. The power of media monopolies is disconcerting and needs to be adressed as they are incapable of policing themselves.

Someone will mention 1st Amendment rights ... but that doesn't apply to businesses (like tweeter) like it does to government entities. Even a local newspaper doesn't have to print your editorial (you can hand out flyers...). And no one gets to yell 'fire' for the fun of it.

Yes, there is a spectre of censorship. But at this point in time it's more like a ghost.

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