Not an easy task, you might say. But the owners of what is a global business, nothing more, can easily make the honest decision that Trump is using the service to disseminate falsehood, and take him off Twitter. No reason why not ... [Google shows that Jack Dorsey was the co-founder and CEO of both Twitter and Square Inc. (NYSE: SQ). 'According to Dorsey's ... filing with the SEC on April 28, 2017, he is the second-largest individual owner of Twitter with 16.6 million shares. May 6, 2019']
The top three individual shareholders of Twitter, as of April 21, 2019 are: Evan Clark Williams, Jack Dorsey & Peter H. Fenton (https://www.investopedia.com/articles/insights/060916/top-3-twitter-shareholders-twtr.asp)
I remember when the last US election campaign was in full swing and Australians were kept in the communication loop through daily reporting by our traditional media of the major issues and speakers in the campaign. Even though Australians do not vote in US elections, we were being stuffed full of the minutiae of the US election campaign. Why? Was this the modern-day equivalent of the power of ancient Rome to govern its most distant colonies, and Australia was now a colony of the great international power-broker, the US of A? What did it have to do with us on a daily basis?
Well, the stream of Trump drivel & falsehood hasn't dried up in the interim ... And what this constant flow of presidential self-aggrandising does have to do with us, is that the closer he takes the US to war, the closer our young men may come to being sent off to slaughter as well. Though that shouldn't necessarily be the case.
So - as an exercise in tapping into the daily triviality of Twitter, I decided to take a random sample of a few current tweets this week and last, on the important issue of reactions to Trump's distracting and lying tweets, which in part are his attempts to avoid impeachment. (See The Natural Resources Defense Council list of Trump's lies https://www.nrdc.org/trump-lies & https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/01/14/trump-says-it-does-not-matter-if-they-lie-us/ )
What concerns me is the extraordinary importance at this crucial time for the common people of America to become more informed about the gravity of allowing a President to lie without constraint, as he tries to shift the role of President away from being one of 3 arms of government into a position of supreme power alone - that is, power to make executive decisions overriding other democratic channels, even to go to war without just cause.
So here's my sample, including a comment from popular author, Stephen King:
Dear Twitter,
Right now would be a great time to suspend Trump's account before he starts a World War using your site. Sincerely, Everyone. Angela Belcamino tweeting on behalf of, if not ‘everyone’, then definitely millions of Americans and many more millions outside of the US.
Reminder that as this crisis escalates, we have no Director of National Intelligence, no Dep Dir, no Homeland Security Secretary, no Dep Sec, no head of CBP or ICE, no State Dept Under Sec of Arms Control, no Asst Sec for Europe, and no Navy Sec. Garrett M. Graff from Vermont.
It’s extremely difficult now to escape the conclusion that @realDonaldTrump started a war because he was impeached. George Conway @gtconway3d
We’re being led into another disastrous war by a Lying Ignorant Fool. God help US. Rob Reiner.
Trump did this. It’s all on Donald Trump. Retweet if you agree. Writer, Stephen King
And there are plenty more over the last 2 days. Another sample:
In the Clinton impeachment process, 66 witnesses were allowed to testify including 3 in the Senate trial, and 90,000 pages of documents were turned over. Trump was too afraid to let any of his top aides testify & covered up every single document. The Senate must #EndTheCoverUp
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
... the Dems in the House wouldn’t let us have 1 witness, no lawyers or even ask questions. It was the most unfair witch-hunt in the history of Congress!
More American troops are now in the Middle East than at the end of President Obama’s term. The rate of drone strikes is up, too. President Trump is not ending wars; he’s expanding them. He’s not bringing troops home; he’s sending them there.
American elections should be decided by the American people, not by the Russian Government. Retweet if you agree
Sorry, but I'm still not over the fact that three days ago Trump said that Saudi Arabia deposited $1 billion in a bank account in exchange for assistance from the U.S. military We need to know exactly where the money is or Trump needs to admit he was lying
📷
So far today, Trump has: 1) retweeted image of a mutilated corpse 2) retweeted Islamophobic image mocking how Muslims dress 3) misspelled Bernie Sanders's name and a slur he uses to demean Warren 4) confused "imminent" and "eminent" - it's not 11 am yet.
So let's get tweeting to let Twitter know that it should ban Trump because we DO NOT WANT TO BE LIED TO!
Credit photo bald eagle: Unsplash - Mathew Schwartz