> The steel-man argument is that the President's statements practically amount to an indirect call for violence. There's no other way for the state to enforce laws except to use the messy apparatus of the police, which may result in collateral damage/violence.
Which would mean that literally any discussion of government policy which could result in law enforcement is a call for violence. While I don't particularly disagree with this stance, and Libertarians in general would be overjoyed to see this shift in perspective, I don't expect to see social media companies ban all discussion of political policy.
e.g. "Deadbeat fathers should have to pay child support". If you fail to pay child support you will eventually be arrested. If you refuse to comply with arresting officers, they will use force against you. Therefore calling for child support is an indirect call for violence.
I actually don't think there's that much wrong with what the President tweeted/posted, but I do think it's inaccurate to compare what he said to just any old discussion of government policy. He wasn't just discussing government policy, he was talking about enforcing it in a very particular way ("the shooting starts").
There is definitely a qualitative difference between:
"Deadbeat fathers should have to pay child support"
and
"When the looting starts, the shooting starts"
I personally disagree that the difference matters, but you have to accept that it's certainly debatable.
Yeah it's definitely legal, I don't think that's the issue. The issue is whether advocating for the legal use of force constitutes "inciting violence", which is against FB and Twitter's ToS.
The central debate is: should the ToS disallow incitements of violence, even if it's actually legal?
Oh, absolutely. I am just following that argument to its logical conclusion and was intentionally pointing out that it doesn't make a lot of sense.
I think you were pretty close in your summary down-thread:
> The issue is whether advocating for the legal use of force constitutes "inciting violence" ...
> The central debate is: should the ToS disallow incitements of violence, even if it's actually legal?
In reality, most of these arguments are working backwards to justify the conclusions they want. Would anyone argue that it should be against the terms of service to say "A woman should be able to fight to defend herself against a would-be sexual-assailant"? Unlikely, because almost anyone is going to think that that is justified (I hope). That is inciting a legal use of violence.
People arguing against the President Trump's statements just don't like what he had to say, whether it's legal or not has nothing to do with their opinions. It's simply that they don't think it's justified, and that's fine. It's just more difficult to get something censored on the grounds of "I disagree with this and don't like it".
It's true that the people arguing against the President's statements aren't necessarily arguing from a principled stance, but that's true of any group that uses the levers of regulation. The Terms of Service, to a company, is sort of like laws to a state. Laws are important because they are instruments that can be used by everyone, and the government in theory ought to consistently apply them.
Take anti-discrimination laws, for example: they were passed in the 60's to combat what was then rampant discrimination against Black Americans by private establishments, however because the rules are generally pretty unambiguous, they can be used today by white people if they are being institutionally discriminated against, for whatever reason. But the group of people that would have utilized the levers of that law to combat discrimination against Black Americans will mostly not be the same group of people that might use the same law to combat any discrimination that might occur against white Americans — Black Americans might even accept discrimination against white Americans and vice versa (we see this happen today). To the law, it doesn't matter — Black Americans can utilize it for their own ends, and so too can white Americans — and as a result we ideally have NO discrimination against ANYONE. It doesn't matter what each group's motivations are.
That's how Terms of Services should (ideally) work, also. Just because the reality today is that one group is using the ToS and working backwards to justify some conclusion, the same levers exist for all other possible groups, and we hopefully reach an equilibrium where the Terms of Services are consistently applied. Unfortunately that appears to be blind idealism because — as we are seeing — companies don't necessarily apply their ToS consistently.
However, in this case, I don't think it's that Facebook doesn't want to apply their ToS consistently. I believe it's that activist employees, and opportunistic companies feigning boycotts, don't want them applied consistently.
Which would mean that literally any discussion of government policy which could result in law enforcement is a call for violence. While I don't particularly disagree with this stance, and Libertarians in general would be overjoyed to see this shift in perspective, I don't expect to see social media companies ban all discussion of political policy.
e.g. "Deadbeat fathers should have to pay child support". If you fail to pay child support you will eventually be arrested. If you refuse to comply with arresting officers, they will use force against you. Therefore calling for child support is an indirect call for violence.