What is a lot less complicated is that we should all be very concerned about a few tech oligarchs having such extraordinary power over our ability to communicate with each other. To paraphrase Hitchens: we are fashioning all kinds of rods for own backs.

To be clear: if what Trump did and inspired was so bad, which I believe it absolutely was, he should face political and legal consequences. Tech oligarchs should not be the arbiters of right and wrong in our public sphere.

I should say they should not be the *whimsical* arbiters. What are the actual principles? They had Erdogan arguably inciting violence in France two months ago with zero consequences. If they are arbiters of right and wrong, Trump should have been banned years ago.

@thomaschattwill Any analysis that does not take Twitter's business interests into consideration is missing the point. In 10 days, they will be facing a government that will want to put restraints on them. They are exercising self-restraint in advance in order to ward off the government.

@thomaschattwill @northrivercanal Trump's free speech was not violated. His right to use a private platform was taken away. He's a billionaire. If he wants to make.his own platform, he can.

@thomaschattwill Whether a society gives power to a select few what information everyone can access has absolutely nothing to do with Trump

@thomaschattwill Well, if he was "made into one", it's because he actually was really turned into one. The precedent Twitter set here will ultimately punish the very same people who are cheering today because they think their political team got a W sooner or later.

@thomaschattwill

@northrivercanal @thomaschattwill I am enjoying it \o/ Life is great

@thomaschattwill It doesn't help when his ban is immediately followed by the purging of accounts all across social media platforms that committed no violation of terms of service and all just happened to be conservative politically. It's pretty obvious this is about far more than Trump.

@thomaschattwill it’s true. He should have had to take the questions, the anger, the push back DIRECTLY from the people & let him reply directly like he always has. But Inauguration is coming up & if this helps save lives .... 🙏🏼 is tough. I think: should’ve given it 1 more day or so & reassess.

@thomaschattwill Many negative consequences were inevitable either way. I think people are underestimating the evidence that more violence was/is brewing; rightly or wrongly, this consideration won out.

@thomaschattwill It just isn’t that complicated... he was elected to serve a full term and he spoke directly to the people! This is more of a threat to democracy as the march on the capitol was. #DemocracyDiesInDarkness

@thomaschattwill & just when we thought 2020 was over!

@thomaschattwill Agreed. Such a poor decision.

@thomaschattwill Not only are there antitrust issues at play, but the stark,extreme one-sided bias amounts to “donations in kind” for [establishment Democrat] campaigns. It’s as if control of virtually all TV broadcasters rested in a few people loyal to one party&all ads were free&only that party