Twitter Says When The President Tweets It, That Means It's Not Illegal

Or, you know, against their terms of service.

Donald Trump has been, for a few years now, spreading a long-debunked lie that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough murdered a congressional aide named Lori Klausutis when he was in Congress. The truth is that she had a rare heart condition, and she died of that. But Trump has gotten REALLY fond of the lie lately, as it serves as yet another distraction to the 100,000 people his shit-poor response to the coronavirus pandemic has helped kill.

Here was Trump this weekend, in between bouts of golfing and pooping:

A lot of interest in this story about Psycho Joe Scarborough. So a young marathon runner just happened to faint in… https: //t.co/xrMnEjesOV

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1590330589.0 

Here was Trump a few weeks ago, in between bouts of pooping and pooping:

“Concast” should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough. I know him and Crazy Mika… https: //t.co/4t6txeh046

— Donald J. Trump (@Donald J. Trump) 1588588691.0 

You know how "Concast" always investigates alleged crimes. Totally their thing.

No reason to screengrab those tweets for posterity, because Twitter has announced it's not going to do shit about them, even though falsely accusing people of murder kind of goes against their policies, or at least you'd think. Especially when Twitter is well known for putting people in Twitter jail for far less. (Don't get on there and say something silly about "ugh men are the worst!" or anything. That is a @sin against @Jack!)

Twitter was pushed to respond to the tweets because Lori Klausutis's widower Timothy Klausutis wrote a letter last week begging Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to do something about it. The letter was then published in the New York Times this morning by Recode tech reporter Kara Swisher.

Trump should obviously be banned from Twitter, just like Kamala Harris insisted, because he uses it for lies and slander and abuse and slander and lies and abuse and also, sometimes, to incite violence. But Timothy Klausutis wasn't asking for that. He just wanted Twitter to delete Trump's constant fucking lies about his wife.

It was a heartbreaking letter:

 "As [Lori Klausutis's] husband, I feel that one of my marital obligations is to protect her memory as I would have protected her in life," he wrote. "There has been a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died. I realize that may sound like an exaggeration, unfortunately it is the verifiable truth. Because of this, I have struggled to move forward with my life."  

"President Trump on Tuesday tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that my wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough. The son of the president followed and more directly attacked my wife by tweeting to his followers as the means of spreading this vicious lie." [...]

"I'm asking you to intervene in this instance because the president of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him — the memory of my dead wife — and perverted it for perceived political gain," Mr. Klausutis wrote in his letter. "My wife deserves better."

Twitter responded with thoughts 'n' prayers:

We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family. We've been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly.

"Shortly." How long have we been waiting for that new verification program, after Twitter had to put it on hold because this is a company that can't figure out how to verify people without prematurely ejaculating blue checkmarks at every Nazi it sees? Yeah.

Anyway, Twitter also said Trump's tweets accusing an innocent man of murder and personally traumatizing the husband of a woman who died just really aren't violations of its terms of service. We guess we missed the part of the terms of service that say "if Donald Trump does it, then it's OK."

Here's Trump this morning, claiming he didn't invent the conspiracy theory, he's just one of the fucking loons who propagates it.

And of course, Trump's misshapen firstborn son, Donald "PICK ME!" Trump Jr., chimed in this morning as well, whining about Daddy's First Amendment right to tweet things, or something, who knows, nobody ever accused this guy of being smart.

The NY Times is calling for Twitter to censor the Pesident of the United States. If they can push for that who won’… https: //t.co/ggVQyTWTYo

— Donald Trump Jr. (@Donald Trump Jr.) 1590504671.0 

Swisher's article about Klausutis's letter is worth reading in its entirety. Trump is indeed a stain on Twitter, just like he's a stain on every other thing he touches.

Swisher notes that this lie is kind of like lies about Seth Rich's death and lies about the Sandy Hook murders, drawing a distinction because the Scarborough lie is "being relentlessly amped up by the leader of the free world." (We would note that Seth Rich truthers spread their vile bullshit in service of Trump, even if he hasn't made that much noise personally promoting that one on Twitter.)

And as Swisher notes, it doesn't matter if you hate Trump (obviously) and also hate Joe Scarborough. It's about the actual deceased woman and her living husband, who are collateral damage of the toddler president's need to constantly express his anal glands:

They are the victims, of Mr. Trump and of Twitter's inability to manage its troubled relationship with him.

Swisher thinks it would be too drastic — or rather unmanageable — to delete Trump entirely, and she says, correctly we believe, that just marking Trump's tweets with "this is a fuckin' lie" would be kind of pointless. So she co-signs Klausutis's request to just delete those tweets about his wife.

Twitter, as usual, has chosen to do nothing. And still can't figure out how to distinguish between a person who should be verified and a verified Nazi!

What a ridiculous company.

[ New York Times /  ibid.  . ]

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