Twitter changes the ballgame with America on the edge of the abyss

IN responding to the BBC’s apology for the good journalism of Emily Maitlis on Newsnight, many on the far right who style themselves “conservatives”, outlined their idea of how journalism should work.

Oozing all the bad faith of their tribe, they spoke warmly of a better time, when journalists were “impartial”, presenting both sides of the argument, and letting the viewers decide for themselves.

By this miserable definition, last week’s moves by Twitter to “fact-check” Trump and to point out that he was glorifying violence, were a pretty mild form of journalism.

Along with his lies about the potential for voting fraud, they added a factcheck label and a link to more reliable sources. They commented on his delirious response to the Minneapolis riots — “when the looting starts, the shooting starts” — but left the tweet up there “in the public’s interest”.

To any rational being, it was a fair exchange — they challenged the statements of a public figure, who had been given the floor uninterrupted. And Lord, how uninterrupted he has been for the last few years, how uninterrupted he still is, as he drags it all down.

Minimal though the response of Twitter might seem in a civilised setting, in the hellish atmosphere of America at this time, in more ways than one it was a thing of tremendous importance — the fact that Twitter was engaging in what might broadly be called an act of journalism, is a sign of just how desperate it is getting in the USA, under the thunder of Trump.

These tech wizards have fought ferociously against the idea that they are publishers, like any newspaper or other form of old media, with the responsibilities that come with that — even last week Mark Zuckerberg was maintaining his position of studied amorality.

Indeed it is one of the great illusions of our time that “old” media is, well, old, when in truth it is a thing of the most fantastic futuristic sophistication, next to the primitive energies which have been driving social media.

It is the tech giants who are the Neanderthals, unwilling to contemplate the levels of accountability which have been built into the real media for centuries. Unwilling, for various reasons, one of the most pressing of which is the fact that in the real media, there are a number of ways in which you can get sued, if you get it wrong — unwilling, at least, until last Tuesday.

Leaving aside the legalities, for Twitter to correct a Trump tweet was a significant moment in itself — it suggested that somewhere out there in the digital wasteland, they realise that America is on the edge of the abyss. And they want to be seen to do something.

Maybe at Twitter they felt that Silicon Valley is one of the few places where you have the sort of person with enough money and enough ego to disrespect Trump where he lives. Or maybe they just thought it would look good. Or maybe ( just go with me on this) they thought it was the right thing to do.

Unlike Zuckerberg, they were taking it upon themselves to acknowledge that there is actually a difference between right and wrong. The fact-check came after several tweets in which Trump accused the TV presenter Joe Scarborough of murder, reinforcing that edge-of-the-abyss feeling — the tweet about election fraud probably wasn’t even the most egregious one he had done that day.

Even faced with such roaring indecency, with this first intervention

Twitter restricted itself to this narrow area of misinformation about elections — but it did set some kind of a precedent.

And lawyers love a precedent, because if you are a publisher in the loosest sense, there are a number of ways you can get sued if you get it wrong — and of course some of them will sue you if you get it right too.

This was in Trump’s wheelhouse, he immediately started raving about the need to “strongly regulate” social media companies with an executive order, this man who routinely rips up regulations of any kind which pertain to the common good.

Trump was all over this one, galvanised by the outrageous idea that Twitter might be thinking of going “straight”, as it were — which to him made them seem weak, deserving of his abuse.

But in the sheer North Korea-ness of his reaction, he revealed some of his own weakness. Due to his habit of accusing others of doing the bad stuff that he’s doing himself, he revealed the level of his dependence on myriad forms of voter fraud to win the election; and in his hilarious line about the “stifling of conservative voices” on social media, he was declaring his intention to flood the internet with electioneering garbage of a kind that will make the

Joe Scarborough story sound like something out of Sunday Miscellany.

He was confirming too, that if you stand up to him at all, he loses it.

‘Trump’s tweet about election fraud wasn’t even the most egregious one that day’