The first private launch of humans from Earth and the docking with the International Space Station (ISS) was the big success of the weekend. But there was actually a bigger story in tech in the past week.
Not to say that the first nongovernment space flight of two US astronauts — Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken — wasn’t big news. It is worth stopping to celebrate the moment. The launch was the culmination of SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s dream to fly people into space.
Just before launch in the Crew Dragon capsule for the 19-hour trip to reach the ISS, Hurley echoed Alan Shepard, the first American in space, who famously said in 1961: "Light this candle." For any space geek, it was hard to trump Saturday’s launch and Sunday’s docking, including Musk’s cool product placement by having the astronauts driven to the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in a Tesla Model X.
But the slow-burning feud between US President Donald Trump and Twitter exploded last week, after it finally acted against the tweeter-in-chief by hiding one of his controversial posts.
This was in the week he even more controversially withdrew funding from the World Health Organisation and revoked Hong Kong’s special status.
Watch how quickly their efforts to get rid of racism will proceed when social networks are held liable
The tweet in question — about the Minnesota riots, in which he invoked a racist comment from the country’s abysmal segregated past that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts" — contravened Twitter’s "community standards". It isn’t the first time Trump has contravened them, but it is the first time Twitter has done something about it. It hid the post behind a notice, saying it is in "the public’s interest" that it should remain visible.
Trump has a long history of abusing his position to post often dangerously untrue and inflammatory statements. Or, as they are more correctly known, lies. Twitter said Trump broke its rules about "glorifying violence".
This came a day after he signed an executive order which attacks section 230 of the US Communications Decency Act — the clause providing legal protection for tech companies in that they aren’t responsible for content that others publish on their platform. Not surprisingly, Facebook has remained quiet on the issue, afraid as always of a right-wing backlash.
Would it be that bad if that protection were removed from the social networks? Freedom of expression is a human right. But Facebook, Twitter, Google and YouTube have hidden behind this shield for too long. Watch how quickly their efforts to get rid of racism, misogyny, hate speech, anti-Semitism and the rest of the craziness will suddenly proceed when they are liable. Nothing else seems to have woken the social giants up to the abuse their platforms spread and the real pain and hurt they cause. In the greatest irony, the biggest potential victim will be Trump himself.
Personally, I’d rather be watching space launches.
- Shapshak is editor-in-chief and publisher of Stuff magazine
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