Comments

  1. Walter Solomon says

    “I have no mouth and I must scream.”

    I’m sure Harlan Ellison would approve of this usage.

  2. MichaelE says

    Well, he could join Parler, but that might not last as Apple has threatened to ban Parler from the App store. We will see if they actually follow through with that.
    While I have no source on it, I can definitely imagine that Google either has, or will follow suit.

  3. gijoel says

    But what about FREEZE PEACH, CENSORSHIP, WOKE MEDIA, CANCEL CULTURE, ELEVENTY, $#/¥€!!!!!

  4. Ridana says

    Don’t you have to give them your SSN on Parler? Given how closely he guards his taxes and the fact that even some die-hards are starting to turn on him after his kinda-concession vid (we’ll go on with or without Trump!”), I’d think he’d be very reluctant to do that. I suppose he could contact them directly and ask them to waive that to have his august self gracing their platform though.

  5. says

    Oh, I’m so impressed. Corporations silence the fascist when he’s powerless.

    Not when he was lying. Not when he was stealing billions. Not when he was inciting violence. Not when he was spewing racism. Not when he was trying to overthrow the government.

  6. blf says

    Follow-up to @12 et al., Apparently the traitor is attempting to hijack other twittering feeds, Swift and Bold (Celer et Audax) (video). From the Grauniad, We regret to report Trump is at it again on Twitter:

    Donald Trump, after being permanently suspended from Twitter under his personal account @theREALDonaldTrump, has tried to hijack the official presidential account @POTUS to tweet his grievances.

    Twitter is quickly deleting the posts before they can be shared, but users briefly could see messages from Trump slamming Twitter for coordinating with Democrats and the radical left to silence the president [sic].

    The social media platform had already said it will remove any new postings from Trump to @POTUS. If Trump attempts to make a new account, it will also be permanently suspended “at first detection,” according to Twitter’s rules.

  7. hemidactylus says

    @8- gijoel
    The catblogger, ultimate arbiter of all things freeze peach, has given Trump’s social media suspensions his official blessing so all is well. Because anything impinging on speech must be scrutinized by him often with great verbosity. Only he can pull his hair trigger to ban commenters who raise his hypersensitive ire…ony. All other limits on expression are verboten.

  8. says

    @19 So it’s stored somewhere? I can’t help but think that the bans from FB and Twitter are the Techbros last act of loyalty – the technical equivalent of tying him to a chair and stuffing a hamberder in his face just to shut him up and stop incriminating himself.

  9. Ishikiri says

    Can we give Jack Dorsey a good old public humiliation for doing the right thing years too late? We don’t have to wound him or anything, just strip him naked and slather him in mint jelly or something.

  10. John Morales says

    Ishikiri:

    We don’t have to wound him or anything, just strip him naked and slather him in mint jelly or something.

    Hm. I think some people would pay for that pleasure.

  11. says

    @Susan Montgomery: IIRC, back when there was the news about how Trump was refusing to save records in accordance with the law, whichever federal agency it is whose job it is to maintain the records said it was archiving his Twitter feed as it came out, and if their archives are good enough for legal purposes in other respects they are presumably good enough on Twitter as well.

    (Also, as I recall, this had to be done because legally a Presidential Tweet has legal standing in a way that a congressional one does not — as I recall, if the President announces a policy over Twitter, it’s still official policy despite being announced over a non-traditional medium, because the important thing is that it’s the head of the Executive Branch saying it, whereas a Congress member has no such authority to make unilateral announcements of policy and so their social media has less legal importance.)

  12. unclefrogy says

    I think the key here is that they were fine with all the shit when he was making them money they could justify it by saying it was historical and important any any and all rationalizations that they could find when the bottom line was he was making them money.
    now with his current status and the failed insurrection any further seditious incitement just might leave them with some liability for enabling the resulting violence which would cost them money. It is money they care about the most clearly and anything that threatens that is to be avoided. I see no high ideals demonstrated by this much needed action. Just like the recent resignations
    rats leaving a sinking ship.
    uncle frogy

  13. chrislawson says

    Intransitive@12–

    Yeah, it’s an interesting thought experiment to consider whether those social media platforms would have suspended Trump’s accounts if the Capitol riot had been more successful. What it looks like to me is an opportunity to stand up to him once he’s lost most of his power and in a few days will have no official power ledt at all.

    For anyone who hasn’t seen it, I strongly recommend Bertolucci’s 1970 political thriller The Conformist. Its devastating final scene is a great analogy for today’s media owners.

  14. vytautasjanaauskas says

    Maybe twitter were hesitant to block him because the same people who wanted him banned are now outraged that one company has so much influence over someones ability to participate in public discourse?

  15. harryblack says

    I’m already seeing liberal freeze peachers hand wring over ‘the implications’ of allowing big tech to silence voices.
    As if they havent had a track record of silencing people speaking out against oppression for years. They wont be nice to us just because we were nice to them. They will just use the rope we give them to choke us.
    At least this is one less outlet for instigation and we can maybe get to work on the conditions that created such a ready and willing base.

  16. says

    @35 While I’m loathe to give Big Business power over public discourse, the fact is that Trump is demonstrating a classic example of falsely shouting “FIRE” in a movie theater and that needs to be addressed.

    Sometimes values will come in conflict and it’s impossible to be %100 consistent %100 of the time. Far too many people take that as an excuse to not have values at all.

    @24 Thank you, Vicar. :)

  17. raven says

    It isn’t that big a deal or shouldn’t be.
    If PZ Myers can have his own website or even a whole website forum called Freethoughblogs, the White House could do the same thing.
    I don’t have a Twitter account and almost never look at it, and still manage to read a few forums and post on a few.

    I get that the White House website or Parler don’t have the readership numbers of Twitter but that shouldn’t be much of a problem.
    If people want to read what Trump says, they can find those addresses in a few seconds.
    That still leaves Trump with the entire vast right wingnut Media sphere including Fox NoNews, One America News, Newsmax, Breitbart, the Blaze, Stormfront, WSJ, Moonie Times, Epoch, New York Post etc.

  18. christoph says

    @ Susan Montgomery, # 35: I’ve always wanted to walk into a firehouse with a DVD and yell “MOVIE!”

  19. says

    Right wing crank cartoonist Ben Garrison also got dumped from Twitter. So it will be harder to see his cartoons of Trump as a sports car, superhero, giant wave etc.

  20. whheydt says

    Re: captainjack @ #32…
    There’s a political cartoon of ships deserting a giant (Trump) rat.

  21. Frederic Bourgault-Christie says

    1984 is trending now on social media. Because conservatives are spending infinitely more time bemoaning a rich man losing a private platform he doesn’t own for speech that could actually get him jailed than condemning terrorists.

    Of course, some of them were calling for us on the Left to be empathetic today.

    Kevin Logan’s stream on the wailing and gnashing of teeth was great.

  22. WhiteHatLurker says

    Interesting – I noted that this reminded me of a quote from Space Viking that I put in an old thread. Wednesday’s incident in your capitol building reminds even more of that book.

    The quote I used earlier is from just after a scene where the antagonist’s mob has rushed the government centre, and overwhelmed the poorly armed and ill prepared police protecting it. The leader had come to power with elaborate suites of lies, and at the end is a delusional creature of his own lies.

    Could be light reading for those you living through this time.

    I wish your country and people all the best in exiting this darker period in your history.