Analysis of attacks against social media – Trump has won the fight against Twitter

opinionWalter Niederberger

Updated 20 minutes ago—

Donald Trump threatens and Twitter kisses. The US President has been misusing the online platform to intimidate, insult and lie for years. Twitter watches unmoved. Company founder Jack Dorsey treats him like a drunk who cannot be dismissed because he is the guest of honor.

Twitter would have clear rules of the game, which were tightened after the Russian hacker scandal of 2016 and which Dorsey promised last year before the congress without enforcing political considerations. The basic rule is simple: users are sanctioned if they “target or incite others”. That’s exactly what Trump does more and more the closer the elections get. The last attack this week was particularly mean even for Trump. He alleged that former Republican MP and television critic Joe Scarborough, who had become a Trump critic, was involved in the murder of an employee in 2001. At the time, her death had been examined by the police and attributed to heart problems. The bare lie is obvious and should be sanctioned.

Twitter allowed Trump to grant, which encouraged him to expand his revenge, despite the late widower’s widower urgently asking Twitter to remove the tweets and complaining that Trump was cruelly tearing open old wounds. The attack did not violate the rules, Dorsey admitted unmoved, but one “deeply regrets the pain these statements (by Trump) cause to the family”.

Trump’s megaphone is too big

Instead of removing the attacks, Dorsey picked up a band-aid. He mailed two other lie tweets about alleged abuse with a corrective link to a CNN article. It was the first intervention against the President, but it was half-hearted. Because Twitter had previously removed such tweets from the presidents of Brazil and Venezuela as it should be.

Therefore the intervention will have no effect. First, Trump’s megaphone has grown too big. Twitter can no longer afford to remove tweets because with more than 80 million followers, it generates more attention, revenue, and profit than anyone else. Second, the malicious message has spread like wildfire when a note is added hours later. The target audience, the Trump supporters, sees the correction as confirmation that the tech companies in Silicon Valley want to systematically suppress conservative voices.

Responsibility still not understood

Trump has succeeded in turning the tables on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms and making them the enemies of the (his) state because they hid behind the freedom of expression in a naive and profit-seeking manner. For the traditional media, this freedom has clear limits that can be brought to justice. Twitter (and Facebook) still haven’t fully understood this responsibility. They have become Trump’s helper.

It is too late to correct these omissions for the 2020 elections. Trump has escalated the fight against social media. It can no longer be braked. Only a massive political intervention in the architecture of social networks can prevent them from becoming “failed states”.

Posted at 8:09 AM today-