They're currently about 98% of the total social media space so they have outsized influence as what most people can think, say and hear. Parler, Gab, and tiny sites like Slug don't make a dent in the beliefs of the voting public.

@Admin Certainly it is not a requirement of conservatives that they belong to Facebook or Twitter in order to live! Food is necessary, sleep is necessary, freedom is necessary, at least freedom of the mind and soul; but Facebook and Twitter are not necessary for life. When conservatives get off them they will die.

My thoughts exactly. As far as the politicians go, I'd never have a public page in official capacity. It looks worse to post, get fact checked, and have the fact check make the news rather than the content of the original post as a political representative. It creates this illusion that big tech is in control over our government, to me.

Also, if every Republican representative was to leave Facebook and Twitter for a new place, that would give these sites less legitamacy and by extension less power. If government takes control, however, that gives the government too much power, imo.

I think the only reason why both Democrat and Republican politicians want to either further censor, not censor as heavily, and repeal sectio 230, is because social media is a powerful tool to have on their side. I feel average users feel politicians may be looking out for their best interests (for either more or less moderating), but I feel they are only looking at their own best interests.

I'm on Twitter, only to ensure views on my blogs and for other things, but I like it here more!

Using that logic, 80+ million Americans voted for Biden, so I guess Twitter isn't going anywhere. Not to mention it is used by people all around the globe, not just America. Maybe if Trump got off Twitter, it would be impacted. But he would never do that.

What word salad is that? Not sure how to respond.

@JacksonNought 80+ million? ... More than Obama and to a man that didn't campaign, needed to agree campaign promises he didn't agree with to get Bernie's support and who's running mate called him a racist in the primarys ..... ..... I might hold off before waving that flag if I were you. #Icallfraud

@Victor-Charles Cheers.

@Victor-Charles yep, current vote totals are 80+ million for Biden. If you think there is fraud there, well you can't then turn around and claim the Trump total is accurate. So Trump got over 10 million more votes than 2016, after his approval rating tanked over the past 4 years, especially with the absolute disaster of his pandemic response, and with plenty of Republicans voicing their support for Biden? So Trump actually got more votes than Obama as well? Biden campaigned plenty... and you could even say Trump campaigned for him. A lot of people voted for Biden to vote against Trump - he was that terrible of a candidate.

You want to talk about words? Would you like to see the words of some of Trump's most loyal supporters currently?

Ted Cruz called Trump a "sniveling coward", "pathological liar", "utterly amoral", "a narcissist at a level I don't think this country's ever seen", and "a serial philanderer". He said, "this man is a pathological liar, he doesn't know the difference between truth and lies ... in a pattern that is straight out of a psychology text book, he accuses everyone of lying ... Donald is a bully ... bullies don't come from strength they come from weakness." Let's also not forget that Trump called Cruz's wife ugly and insinuated his dad had a hand in killing JFK. Yet now Cruz is a huge Trump supporter, even campaigning for him.

Lindsey Graham said of Trump, “he's a race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot ... know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” He also said, "we have to reject this demagoguery, and if we don't reject Donald Trump, we've lost the moral authority … to govern this great nation." And then he said of Biden, "if you can't admire Joe Biden as a person then there's probably — you've got a problem ... [He is] as good a man as God ever created ... is the nicest person I think I ever met in politics." Graham was also famously super close with John McCain, a man Trump consistently attacked, even after death. Yet now Graham is one of Trump's most vocal loyal supporters.

In 2015, Trump called for a "Muslim ban" - Mike Pence responded with "calls to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. are offensive and unconstitutional." Yet he became his running mate anyway.

You honestly can't fathom how there would be a record turn-out this time around? More people are of eligible voting age this year than in 2008, 2012, and 2016. With the pandemic, mail-in voting was expanded greatly, making voting much more accessible to people (legal, living, American citizens).

I keep bringing it up on this site. Pretty much every single state in the US was a mix of red and blue counties... except West Virginia and Oklahoma. Not a single blue county, 100% red. Even Delaware, Biden's home state, had a red county. How is that possible? I call fraud there, and it should be full investigated with as much fervor as Trump's fraud claims.

@JacksonNought Solid argument. LOL

@JacksonNought ted Cruz is not his running mate he ran against trump so maybe look at Mike Pence.
Also, can you show me any evidence of voter fraud that benefited trump???
[slug.com]

@Victor-Charles yeah, and Kamala was running against Biden, so of course she would try and get a leg-up. Now that she is given the opportunity for VP, she is willing to forgive and forget. It's politics. As shown by Cruz, Graham, and yes even Pence (I already cited an example), people will go back on their ethics pretty quickly when it benefits themselves and their party.

As for fraud that could benefit Trump...

How about the unauthorized GOP ballot boxes placed in California? The state's Republican party placed dozens of unauthorized ballot drop off boxes in several counties, which they would then collect and send through officially. What was to stop them from changing the ballots before sending them along, trying to give Trump a chance in California? Hmmm...

How about a group called Kenosha For Trump in Wisconsin making calls to Pennsylvanians to force through late, therefore illegal, votes. Either this was to try and push PA to go to Trump through illegal means, or an attempt to get some illegal votes through to try and cry foul and throw out the PA results.

How about the attempts by Trump lawyer Lane Ruhland to force through Kanye West's name on the ballots, illegally past the due date, in an attempt to hurt Biden.

I'll list a couple other Republican attempts at fraud:

• Dewey Gidcumb, of Haywood County, NC, was found guilty of voting twice in the 2016 Republican Primary.
• Frank Sparaco, of NY, pleaded guilty to eight misdemeanor charges for filing election petitions that nominated individuals to Clarkstown Republican Committee positions, while listing addresses that were
  not their true residences. In addition, he pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges of furnishing false information by “renting” a room in his home so that he could register two other individuals to vote.
• James Criswell, a Republican from Douglas County, Colorado, pleaded no contest to the charge of double voting in the November 2016 election.
• William Hazard, 53, of West Boynton, FL, pleaded guilty to one felony voter registration charge and three misdemeanor charges of attempting to submit false voter registration information. Hazard was hired by a
  consulting firm to register Republican voters; in the process he illegally switched party registrations for multiple voters and even registered his uncle, an Iowa resident, to vote in Florida.
• Toni Lee Newbill, of Colorado, pleaded guilty to voting twice using her deceased father’s name to do so, once in the 2013 general election and again in the Republican primary of 2016.
• In the 2016 election, a Trump voter in Iowa got caught trying to vote twice in Des Moines, and when asked for an explanation, she said, "the polls are rigged."
• In the 2016 election, a Texas Republican, who claimed to be associated with the Trump campaign, tried to vote twice because he wanted to "test" the integrity of the system.
• In the 2016 election a Republican woman in Illinois was caught filling out an absentee ballot for her deceased husband.
• In the 2016 election, a woman was hired to open absentee ballots in Miami-Dade County, and she was caught filling in others' ballots in support of a Republican mayoral candidate.

@JacksonNought love to read information I'm unaware of but what I had asked for was examples of fraud that lent trumps way in this election.
On the issue of calling Biden a racist I'm not sure that's a forgive and forget kinda thing but I understand that the VP position may make people act against their morals.

I think its important to note the specificity of proven fraud cases capable of swinging an election, and there partisan appearance in relation to this election.

Lastly let us not forget that this thread is in reply to to you believing that republicans leaving Twitter won't hurt Twitter because there are 80 million + democrats... Yet in the same breath saying that if trump left Twitter it would Hurt Twitter but that that, wouldn't happen... The problem here is that sites like Twitter make money and work well because of difference of opinion; like ours rather conveniently.

What I took issue with is the 80 + million votes, I think that number is going to decrease before we see the end of proceedings. In response you have argued that Republicans say nasty things and in 2016 some had admitted to committing criminal acts. In regards to this election though your evidence seems limp.

Nevertheless, leaving this to one side I agree with @Tarpon that the overbearing nature of Twitter and it's excessively partisan approach to censorship will cause people to leave Twitter in droves, and I think they mainstream medias response to these new companies goes some too to showcase their fear.

[sfgate.com]

I don't see Twitter going anywhere any time soon, seeing as tumbler is still around spewing whatever it is tumbler spews into the world. Now, do most people on Twitter have a sense of what the real world is like? No, I don't think so because most people on there are just trying to stay "woke" to avoid being canceled like Anita getting mad about the female Mandalorian armor being fitted to her body rather than having a flat breastplate. Only so much you can really do.

Sad, but true.

But you can't be racist to white people! They have all the power! Plus they're not even a color!(sarcasm) it cracks me up how people forget what racism really is and think it's something that only affects the minority.

Because whites hold all the power! The only way you can be racist is to have power! (Sarcasm)

@TheMiddleWay

@DrHiebert
That was me, laughing at one so blinded by bias yet who presents himself as a middle way.

@DrHiebert you find humor in Trump's criminal ineptness. "Triggering the Libs" comes before, "they are trying to undermine the election and throw out millions of legal votes because Trump is having a tantrum"...right? You Conservatives have a corrupted way of thinking...FRIGHTENING!!! Especially coming from someone in Canada, who has no input in the American election.

Racism isn't really hardwired into someone's DNA it's taught they had to of had racist parents who taught them that anyone that's not the same color as them is inferior I saw it growing up, I was over at a friends house and their mother and father asked me what I thought of blacks and that in their household they don't think blacks should have any kind of power in anything because when they were growing up blacks still had to sit in the back of the bus, and they were teaching their kid this as well. Now obviously when you grow up you can make your own choices on how you see the world, but being raised like that is going to have some effect on what your view of the world is when you grow up and get into the real world outside of your parent's house.

Exactly, identity politics is fascism or communism. Really they are the same thing. Eisenhower came up with the term fascism to differentiate axis and allies. Whoever is “really” pulling the string doesn’t care about anyone. They puppeteer the useful idiots, with no understanding of history, to leverage for control and dominance. Identity politics can reduce victim status to sub atomic levels. Creating chaos, exactly what they want. People en mass will choose any form of leadership over chaos. Good luck with that.

@Tarpon They destroy and rewrite history, and they do this with the language itself creating new definitions for words like racism to fit their hustle and put all the guilt on the innocent. Have you ever had a conversation with some nutjob trying to say socialism are communism are not the same thing and have totally different outcomes? I often wonder how many of these people are honestly deluded, and which ones know what they spout is bure BS?

@KCSantiago Yep.Semantics. Sophism and bat shit crazy.

I'm not sure I like the idea of holding them to account if they want to act like publishers treat them like it.

They aren't litigating. They are, as a private company, setting the rules for using their free platforms. No one has a right to use a social media platform.

Platforms like FB will attempt to though regardless. Personally, I don't think such platforms are worth the time arguing over, especially when we have sites like this one.

The example tweets that Twitter shows are obviously made highly objectionable regardless of the racial targeting so people don't get upset. Twitter/Facebook/Youtube ban even slight disparagements or even factual claims provided they are not against Whites.

@Admin Not unless those whites are making hateful, bigoted posts. I don't think it's specially targeting white people. Blacks are only 13% percent of the population, most of Twitter is white. They aren't flagging everybody.

Quite correct. Especially as the Hillary Clinton pizza comment comes off as trying to make a factual statement of information, when it is in fact blatantly false.

I agree that some people believe that even talking about race-related censorship is racist... and that any resistance to creating a rule that only Whites can break is racist.

@Admin
I don’t think talking about it is racist, but worrying about it is.
And sanitizing it by moving it to a generic category that sounds scary is too. In reality it’s very context specific.

Being racist doesn’t make a person evil or less worthy as a human being, it just makes them generate more suffering for themselves and others. It’s a lose/lose. Resisting our universal racist inclinations is a learned skill. Few, if any, come by it naturally.