In other words: two dueling narratives.
1) Trump understandably tried to stop what much evidence suggests was the theft of the election; and heroic constitutional conservatives like Cruz and Hawley stood by him, although, tragically, patriotic protests went over the line. 1/
1) Trump understandably tried to stop what much evidence suggests was the theft of the election; and heroic constitutional conservatives like Cruz and Hawley stood by him, although, tragically, patriotic protests went over the line. 1/
2) Trump is a mentally ill seditionist; accusations of election theft are baseless. No reason to suppose the election was other than fair and free, hence cynical attempts to cast doubt, for profit, are, at best, para-fascist LARPing for profit. The base: lots of rubes & thugs. 2/
Does Twitter have an obligation to be agnostic between 1 & 2, merely because 2) is the line one major party, the D's, is taking, but the other party, the R's, even though its leaders know 2) is true, needs to save face by feigning 1) has merit? 2) is too insulting to the base! 3/
The answer is: no, Twitter does not, and should not, be obliged to pretend 1) has validity. Twitter can proceed on the sane basis of 2. Now: the fact that vital questions of national politics hinge on WHETHER Twitter proceeds on the basis of 2 are separate. 4/
The republic should not need @jack to decide its fate. But that Jack - who owns a social media company - can decide his company will treat 2) as true, for moderation purposes, is perfectly reasonable. 5/
If Twitter and Facebook had decided, instead, to say that only 1) is the valid narrative and anyone suggesting the election was free and fair gets banned for attempting to steal the election, the republic would be over and we'd be living under authoritarian strongman rule. 6/
That a few private, corporate chokepoints determine whether the republic stands or falls is not right. But a condition of discussing that danger sanely is acknowledging, first, which side did the right thing, in fact, this time. 7/
Cons are using the fact that Twitter has too much power as a smokescreen to obscure the fact that Twitter used its power, rightly, to check their side's wrongdoing. Unserious proposals to check Twitter, that merely obfuscate R wrongdoing, are rightly ignored. 8/
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