I know I'm in the minority here but in my opinion it is wrong to censor people from these platforms. What should be censored is what they say, not the person. This whole discussion going on everywhere misses a crucial point: Twitter and Facebook are American companies. If they blocked POTUS and where owned by China then what? I know POTUS likely wouldn't post there then but for the sake of argument. It shows that the government(s) lack control and enforcement options.
>If they blocked POTUS and where owned by China then what?
then the president should, like all other presidents before continue to communicate through the channels available to her, including the white house press corps that follows her around.
Presidents conducting government business through private platforms should be banned to begin with because 1. it's insecure, 2. it creates a conflict of interest between a private account and a public office. Officials could start using their official accounts and followers to peddle private business interests. (in fact President Trump already did that when he started to advertise beans)
What about TV then? Doesn't the president conduct public business that way? PBS, for as great as it can be, isn't really the channels most people watch. Presidents communicate on private media all the time.
This just seems like there is a void that needs to be filled. Terrible as they may be, we can't have non-specialized platforms censoring politicians. There needs to a place where politician can speak their mind to the public and we can decide kick them out of office for their hate filled bullsh*t opinions when they do.
I'm not religious, but I would much rather trust a priest with the policing of public speech (and that gives me the worst kind of shivers). If you don't trust zuck/dorsey/bazos with your data, why would you trust them with this? It just feels like we are privatizing morality and the common good. Like a digital private police force.
Yes in the US politicians using private media channels is common and I think it's one of the largest contributors to the partisanship in the country and general engagement driven circus that politics has become. Even with a 'proper politician' such as Obama I'm not sure where the presidency ended and the Netflix deal began.
If everyone has the feeling that politics feels like a mix of a season of Survivor, the West Wing and the Apprentice is because that's precisely what it has turned into.
I don't think politicians should 'speak their mind' to the public in unmediated fashion, and everyone would be better served if the focus was on successfully conducting the business of government rather than politics as entertainment. I haven't counted how often Angela Merkel went on private TV in her 16 years as chancellor but my guess is it was fewer than a dozen times.
I wholesale agree with your criticism of the current system, the status quo is not what i'm advocating for.
That said, an unintended consequence of the proposed policy, especially if we extend it to tv, is people simply have less exposure to the decision making process. I don't know if I am willing to make that trade. I don't like the idea of a president being able to hide behind the vale of formal behavior. If my president is a white supremacist sympathizer, I want to know. Scratch that, I deserve to know.
I realize public politicking is currently partisan theater, I'm not trying to deny that either. Still, even from that purview there may be hope, the more we are exposed to it, the sooner we'll grow tired and do something about it with our votes. I don't know enough about the politicians from that state to qualify if it was a good thing or not, but Georgia just went blue during a runoff of all things! I'm sure part of that was fueled by the president's voter fraud saber rattling.
I know its hard to separate the person from the idea, but I really loved that the president, not his staff, tweeted. From it I learned that he either believes or is while to spread conspiratorial narratives as long as he sees a benefit from it. The things he tweeted seemed way worse than the "Smart people said that..." / "I heard that..." kinda stuff he did during his rallies. That is a character flaw I don't want thumbing over the button.
I agree with this and I would extend it to all politicians. Why are you communicating serious business via Twitter? Use formal outlets and put a little effort into it. Less than 22% of US adults have a Twitter account and less than 42% of that is active. The media just reports on what is put on Twitter anyway, so why not cut out the middle man?
