"I almost unleashed my beautiful Twitter account against you, and I still may", said Donald Trump, according to Megan Kelly, when threatening her after she aired a story with Daily Beast reporter who defended articled about Trump's divorce, in which his first wife accuses Trump of rape in sworn testimony, later disavowed. Kelly also makes this clear.
I want to focus on the alleged threat by Trump. This is our future President. And I have been hearing very disturbing stories about this trend in which people (sometimes Trump) point to someone on twitter and all hell breaks out in their lives. Not all of these are linked to Trump, but if you haven't heard, get a taste...
David French, National Review.
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic.
Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.
And now this, yesterday, aimed at a Union leader, Chuck Jones, who was critical of Trump's recent deal with the Carrier company in Indian. Trump then tweeted and the man's phone started ringing.
Such a "beautiful Twitter account"!
Did Trump attack all these people? No.
But Kelly's accusation basically identifies the behaviour directly (i.e., he knows exactly what he's doing!) and yesterday's tweeting confirms that the President-elect is acting like a troll, or at least using his tweets to direct trolls in very, very disturbing ways.
This must stop! And by must stop, I have no naive expectations that it means trolling will stop. I mean the fucking President-elect must stop and condemn this and work to "Make America Safe Again", which means being able to criticise people without the fear of death and rape threats flooding a person's life and making them fear for the safety of their family and children.
There is much to be said about the Kelly interview on Fresh Air (really, listen to it), but the most important take away is connecting the dots. Troll behaviour is not fun and games and it requires Trump to stop acting like a troll.
I want to focus on the alleged threat by Trump. This is our future President. And I have been hearing very disturbing stories about this trend in which people (sometimes Trump) point to someone on twitter and all hell breaks out in their lives. Not all of these are linked to Trump, but if you haven't heard, get a taste...
David French, National Review.
Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic.
Erick Erickson, founder of RedState.
And now this, yesterday, aimed at a Union leader, Chuck Jones, who was critical of Trump's recent deal with the Carrier company in Indian. Trump then tweeted and the man's phone started ringing.
Such a "beautiful Twitter account"!
Did Trump attack all these people? No.
But Kelly's accusation basically identifies the behaviour directly (i.e., he knows exactly what he's doing!) and yesterday's tweeting confirms that the President-elect is acting like a troll, or at least using his tweets to direct trolls in very, very disturbing ways.
This must stop! And by must stop, I have no naive expectations that it means trolling will stop. I mean the fucking President-elect must stop and condemn this and work to "Make America Safe Again", which means being able to criticise people without the fear of death and rape threats flooding a person's life and making them fear for the safety of their family and children.
There is much to be said about the Kelly interview on Fresh Air (really, listen to it), but the most important take away is connecting the dots. Troll behaviour is not fun and games and it requires Trump to stop acting like a troll.
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