Trump’s assault on truth takes an ugly new turn

homersapien · May 28, 2020

Opinion writer

May 28, 2020 at 10:48 a.m. EDT

President Trump is set to roll out a new executive order designed to punish Twitter for daring to attach a mild fact-check to his false tweets about vote-by-mail. This debate will get thorny, so let’s first state clearly exactly what Trump is trying to accomplish here:

Trump wants to be able to lie on Twitter and other platforms with total impunity, free of any fact-checking.
Trump doesn’t want Twitter to inform people of options for voting safely amid a pandemic, in hopes that fear of sickness and death will discourage voting and keep turnout low, to his benefit.

Now that Trump is trying to use the power of the state toward those profoundly corrupt goals, this marks a new low for Trump’s legacy of lies.

A great new book by The Post’s fact-checking team helps us make sense of this moment. It is a comprehensive effort to tally up the extraordinary range, depth and breadth of Trump’s lying.

When you view all of the lies in one place — he has told more than 16,000 — the effect is striking. And this larger context is crucial to understanding Trump’s new legal assault on Twitter.

Trump’s new executive order enshrines the hallowed principle that he and other conservatives should be able to lie and spread disinformation on social media without any fear of moderation that might challenge, fact-check or correct those lies.

We know this is Trump’s real goal, because he told us so himself.

The new executive order

The executive order takes action to limit the legal protections enjoyed by tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google. The ostensible justification is that it will help combat “selective censoring” by tech companies, as a draft of the executive order reportedly puts it.

But Trump himself has already given away the game, by explicitly declaring his plan to “strongly regulate” social media companies because they “totally silence conservative voices.”

Trump has explicitly revealed which “voice” he’s talking about here: his own. After Twitter corrected Trump’s lies about vote-by-mail being riddled with fraud, he tweeted that Twitter is “now interfering” in the election, citing that fact check.

Trump also linked the coming executive order directly to this alleged effort to “CENSOR” him. Thus, the executive order is direct retribution for the fact-check.

The executive order attacks Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. This protects Internet companies from being “treated as a publisher” of information on their platforms that are provided by someone else. This protects them from being held liable for much content on them.

In attacking this provision, Trump is advancing an argument from conservatives — that by fact checking Trump, Twitter is censoring him and has veered into the role of publisher (by adding its own fact checking content), and no longer deserves that special liability protection.

But this argument is absurd. As Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the author of this provision, has pointed out, it allows social media companies to police certain truly egregious content for socially beneficial reasons, without being held liable for content that is, say, defamatory that was left on the platform, allowing it to feature more voices with less oversight.

If anything, that’s the opposite of censorship (never mind that Twitter is a private company). What’s more, by adding a fact-check, Twitter is not somehow only functioning as a publisher and no longer functioning as a platform for content created by others. And fact-checking Trump isn’t censoring him, either.

While there may be legitimate reasons for revisiting Section 230 — such as its facilitation of the spread of election disinformation — the idea that Trump is being censored is not one of them. And again, Trump has made this rationale explicit.

It’s true that the move is likely toothless. The executive order vaguely calls for the Federal Communications Commission to “clarify” Section 230. As legal experts pointed out, this will probably come to nothing whatsoever. Trump cannot change this law by himself, and the FCC will probably do nothing.

But the intended effect is the real point here. And the intended effect is to make social media companies pause before fact-checking Trump.

Trump’s real game

Ultimately, Trump is not merely using state power to try to bully Twitter into refraining from fact-checking him. He’s also using it to bully Twitter into refraining from disseminating information that could inform Americans about options for voting safely in a pandemic, because he hopes that the coronavirus will dissuade voting and keep turnout down, helping his reelection.

Trump is using the threat of state action to make that happen. That’s a flagrant abuse of power, even if it doesn’t amount to anything.

In their remarkable new book, The Post’s fact-checking team — Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly — tally up an extraordinary range of lies.

Trump has lied endlessly about immigrants and his border wall, about his various enemies, about the economy and trade, about foreign policy, about his impeachment and, most recently, about the coronavirus, which has now claimed more than 100,000 U.S. lives.

As the book illustrates with new clarity, Trump has remade the presidency by crossing from conventional political lying over to something much more akin to the spreading of quasi-totalitarian disinformation.

Central to that has been Trump’s constant efforts to delegitimize institutions that strive for neutral mediating roles — and his constant attacks on the very possibility of shared facts as a basis for political debate and even on neutrality itself.

Or, as Kessler puts it in the book’s conclusion:

A hallmark of authoritarian regimes is to call truth into question — except as the regime defines it.

The true intent behind the new assault on Twitter is of a piece with this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/28/trump-has-told-16000-lies-now-hes-trying-silence-those-who-correct-him/

wdefromtx · May 28, 2020

The irony of the situation is Trump is so dense he is says he is trying to protect free speech by well censoring free speech.

IronMan70 · May 28, 2020

1 hour ago, wdefromtx said:

The irony of the situation is Trump is so dense he is says he is trying to protect free speech by well censoring free speech.

The real irony is that POTUS's tweet about absentee ballots was "fact checked" with a lie.

wdefromtx · May 28, 2020

1 hour ago, IronMan70 said:

The real irony is that POTUS's tweet about absentee ballots was "fact checked" with a lie.

Ha!!! Just now read an article about that. It also talked about Biden back in January and him saying they needed to revoke some of the protections Trump wants removed.

alexava · May 29, 2020

Sumbich has been spewing s*** and lies for years on social media and in front of cameras and microphones. He’s just spoiled into thinking he owns the truth.

homersapien · May 29, 2020

12 hours ago, alexava said:

Sumbich has been spewing s*** and lies for years on social media and in front of cameras and microphones. He’s just spoiled into thinking he owns the truth.

The only thing he "owns" is his idiot base. He certainly owns them.

jj3jordan · May 29, 2020

22 hours ago, homersapien said:

Greg Sargent

Opinion writer

May 28, 2020 at 10:48 a.m. EDT

President Trump is set to roll out a new executive order designed to punish Twitter for daring to attach a mild fact-check to his false tweets about vote-by-mail. This debate will get thorny, so let’s first state clearly exactly what Trump is trying to accomplish here:

Trump wants to be able to lie on Twitter and other platforms with total impunity, free of any fact-checking.

Trump doesn’t want Twitter to inform people of options for voting safely amid a pandemic, in hopes that fear of sickness and death will discourage voting and keep turnout low, to his benefit.

Now that Trump is trying to use the power of the state toward those profoundly corrupt goals, this marks a new low for Trump’s legacy of lies.

A great new book by The Post’s fact-checking team helps us make sense of this moment. It is a comprehensive effort to tally up the extraordinary range, depth and breadth of Trump’s lying.

When you view all of the lies in one place — he has told more than 16,000 — the effect is striking. And this larger context is crucial to understanding Trump’s new legal assault on Twitter.

Trump’s new executive order enshrines the hallowed principle that he and other conservatives should be able to lie and spread disinformation on social media without any fear of moderation that might challenge, fact-check or correct those lies.

We know this is Trump’s real goal, because he told us so himself.

The new executive order

The executive order takes action to limit the legal protections enjoyed by tech companies such as Twitter, Facebook and Google. The ostensible justification is that it will help combat “selective censoring” by tech companies, as a draft of the executive order reportedly puts it.

But Trump himself has already given away the game, by explicitly declaring his plan to “strongly regulate” social media companies because they “totally silence conservative voices.”

Trump has explicitly revealed which “voice” he’s talking about here: his own. After Twitter corrected Trump’s lies about vote-by-mail being riddled with fraud, he tweeted that Twitter is “now interfering” in the election, citing that fact check.

Trump also linked the coming executive order directly to this alleged effort to “CENSOR” him. Thus, the executive order is direct retribution for the fact-check.

The executive order attacks Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. This protects Internet companies from being “treated as a publisher” of information on their platforms that are provided by someone else. This protects them from being held liable for much content on them.

In attacking this provision, Trump is advancing an argument from conservatives — that by fact checking Trump, Twitter is censoring him and has veered into the role of publisher (by adding its own fact checking content), and no longer deserves that special liability protection.

But this argument is absurd. As Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the author of this provision, has pointed out, it allows social media companies to police certain truly egregious content for socially beneficial reasons, without being held liable for content that is, say, defamatory that was left on the platform, allowing it to feature more voices with less oversight.

If anything, that’s the opposite of censorship (never mind that Twitter is a private company). What’s more, by adding a fact-check, Twitter is not somehow only functioning as a publisher and no longer functioning as a platform for content created by others. And fact-checking Trump isn’t censoring him, either.

While there may be legitimate reasons for revisiting Section 230 — such as its facilitation of the spread of election disinformation — the idea that Trump is being censored is not one of them. And again, Trump has made this rationale explicit.

It’s true that the move is likely toothless. The executive order vaguely calls for the Federal Communications Commission to “clarify” Section 230. As legal experts pointed out, this will probably come to nothing whatsoever. Trump cannot change this law by himself, and the FCC will probably do nothing.

But the intended effect is the real point here. And the intended effect is to make social media companies pause before fact-checking Trump.

Trump’s real game

Ultimately, Trump is not merely using state power to try to bully Twitter into refraining from fact-checking him. He’s also using it to bully Twitter into refraining from disseminating information that could inform Americans about options for voting safely in a pandemic, because he hopes that the coronavirus will dissuade voting and keep turnout down, helping his reelection.

Trump is using the threat of state action to make that happen. That’s a flagrant abuse of power, even if it doesn’t amount to anything.

In their remarkable new book, The Post’s fact-checking team — Glenn Kessler, Salvador Rizzo and Meg Kelly — tally up an extraordinary range of lies.

Trump has lied endlessly about immigrants and his border wall, about his various enemies, about the economy and trade, about foreign policy, about his impeachment and, most recently, about the coronavirus, which has now claimed more than 100,000 U.S. lives.

As the book illustrates with new clarity, Trump has remade the presidency by crossing from conventional political lying over to something much more akin to the spreading of quasi-totalitarian disinformation.

Central to that has been Trump’s constant efforts to delegitimize institutions that strive for neutral mediating roles — and his constant attacks on the very possibility of shared facts as a basis for political debate and even on neutrality itself.

Or, as Kessler puts it in the book’s conclusion:

A hallmark of authoritarian regimes is to call truth into question — except as the regime defines it.

The true intent behind the new assault on Twitter is of a piece with this.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/28/trump-has-told-16000-lies-now-hes-trying-silence-those-who-correct-him/

Second line. Tells me all I need to see.

Opinion writer. Not interested.

wdefromtx · May 29, 2020

58 minutes ago, jj3jordan said:

Second line. Tells me all I need to see.

Opinion writer. Not interested.

I will check them out to an extent, but usually it’s just going to be some article that gives him the confirmation bias he seeks. Also, funny how they say trump “owns” his base...but their party “owns” them just as much. The hypocrisy is strong in these sections of the forum boards!

I_M4_AU · May 29, 2020

Here is something Sen. Ted Cruze commented on that the opinion piece didn’t even consider.

Giving a terrorist organization, such as Iran, a voice in the U.S. is against the law. The first amendment is for U. S. Citizens, not foreign governments.

homersapien · May 29, 2020

2 hours ago, jj3jordan said:

Second line. Tells me all I need to see.

Opinion writer. Not interested.

Of course you aren't. $:-\$

SaltyTiger · May 30, 2020

10 hours ago, homersapien said:

The only thing he "owns" is his idiot base. He certainly owns them.

His base is not a complete group of bumbling "idiots" Brother Homer. Reaction from his opponents, due to his election, has been much more "idiotic" and concerning. History will show as much.

DKW 86 · May 30, 2020

His base hates the ruling class. That is a constant thru out time.

But Trump, he has gone completely off the cliff. If he wins now, that would be miraculous.

But while he is going for clear air...
Gonna jump? Do a flip! - Bender IMHO | Meme Generator

homersapien · May 30, 2020

15 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

His base is not a complete group of bumbling "idiots" Brother Homer. Reaction from his opponents, due to his election, has been much more "idiotic" and concerning. History will show as much.

That's absurd.

SaltyTiger · May 31, 2020

8 hours ago, homersapien said:

That's absurd.

Why is it absurd?

DKW 86 · June 1, 2020

23 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Why is it absurd?

Doesnt fit the TPM Narrative, therefore it cannot be considered not even with an avalanche of evidence.

It must be ignored and downplayed AT ALL COSTS because it doesnt fit the narrative.

homersapien · June 1, 2020

On 5/30/2020 at 9:42 PM, SaltyTiger said:

Why is it absurd?

Because the reaction of Trump's "opponents" is based on Trump's own statements and actions, not because he simply won the election.

He has turned out to be exactly who we thought he was all along. And the reaction to that is certainly not "idiotic". It's rational. To suggest the rational reaction to Trump is more of a problem than Trump himself, is absurd.

I seriously don't understand the psychology of those who are in apparent denial about who and what Trump is, as evidenced daily. All I can surmise is that it's rooted in something that has nothing to do with actual policy.

aujhw · June 1, 2020

It is crazy because the president has gotten away with so much on social media. They have allowed him to say whatever without any pushback. Even now they didn’t even delete his tweets.

I think this probably another distraction designed to rule up his base.

SaltyTiger · June 2, 2020

13 hours ago, homersapien said:

I seriously don't understand the psychology of those who are in apparent denial about who and what Trump is, as evidenced daily

Few if any are in denial about "who and what Trump is". Simple and refreshing in a way to know were the man stands.

Also simple to see what his opposition is about. A little scary. You have gone above and beyond in exposing the stance Brother Homer.

1716AU · June 2, 2020

Well, his idiot base is the whole of the South.

That bunch of moronic, heretical Evangelicals are learning this is what you get when you trade Jesus in for Nationalism.

From the Didache for you "Evangelicals"

"For in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate, for when lawlessness increases, they shall hate and persecute and betray."

Sounds just like First Baptist Dallas to me.

On 5/29/2020 at 10:36 AM, homersapien said:

The only thing he "owns" is his idiot base. He certainly owns them.

McLoofus · June 2, 2020

7 minutes ago, 1716AU said:

Well, his idiot base is the whole of the South.

That bunch of moronic, heretical Evangelicals are learning this is what you get when you trade Jesus in for Nationalism.

From the Didache for you "Evangelicals"

"For in the last days false prophets and corrupters shall be multiplied, and the sheep shall be turned into wolves, and love shall be turned into hate, for when lawlessness increases, they shall hate and persecute and betray."

Sounds just like First Baptist Dallas to me.

For the briefest moment last night, I thought it would matter to them that the Episcopal Diocese of Washington DC strongly disavowed and criticized not only trump's use of their church and bible without permission for his publicity stunt, but also his entire anti-Christian presidency. But then I remembered who and what those people really are.

homersapien · June 2, 2020

13 hours ago, SaltyTiger said:

Few if any are in denial about "who and what Trump is". Simple and refreshing in a way to know were the man stands.

Also simple to see what his opposition is about. A little scary. You have gone above and beyond in exposing the stance Brother Homer.

Yeah, the same way that Hitler was "simple and refreshing" back in the 30's. You knew were he stood also.

I don't know what it is about your psychology that allows you to defend this POS, but I suspect it doesn't really have all that much to do with Trump.

And it's too bad that you are frightened by those of us who are willing to see and state the truth about him, since you think his opposition is "a little scary".

Maybe you should think a little about that, Brother Salty.

jj3jordan · June 2, 2020

1 hour ago, homersapien said:

Yeah, the same way that Hitler was "simple and refreshing" back in the 30's. You knew were he stood also.

I don't know what it is about your psychology that allows you to defend this POS, but I suspect it doesn't really have all that much to do with Trump.

And it's too bad that you are frightened by those of us who are willing to see and state the truth about him, since you think his opposition is "a little scary".

Maybe you should think a little about that, Brother Salty.

More comparisons about Trump being the next Hitler. Is that really all you got Homer? You are a pathetic sad man, undeserving of the freedom this country affords you.

homersapien · June 2, 2020

12 minutes ago, jj3jordan said:

More comparisons about Trump being the next Hitler. Is that really all you got Homer? You are a pathetic sad man, undeserving of the freedom this country affords you.

It's a perfectly valid analogy snowflake.

And stop projecting.

McLoofus · June 2, 2020

3 minutes ago, homersapien said:

It's a perfectly valid analogy snowflake.

It's really incomprehensible that the guy openly admires multiple autocrats and dictators- to include every closest comparison to Hitler alive today- and these clowns stick their heads in the sand. That should be the flashing red sign to even the most ignorant, unlearned among us.

Once you get into third-grade level history and see the consistent pattern that goes straight through- yes- Hitler and the similarities with those same current dictators, it really should be obvious.

But I'm telling you. This is another Third Wave experiment happening in real life and some of the dumbasses in here think they're getting an armband. I just really hope that our democracy is sound enough to withstand it. That insanity last night has me shook.

Jackasses talking about how free this country is while their hero looks them in the eye and tells them that he's sending the military in to rob American citizens of their First Amendment rights. You idiots! Wake the **** up!

wdefromtx · June 2, 2020

There's a whole lot of irony and hypocrisy in this thread with certain folks talking about assaulting the truth.

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