fbpx

Twitter has published its rules for world leaders, including what types of tweets won’t be allowed

Twitter has revealed its moderation policies for world leaders in a new blog post.

The post from Twitter doesn’t discuss the actions of any specific world leader, but the company said it wanted to better explain why it makes moderation decisions when reviewing controversial posts from political figures.

“When it comes to the actions of world leaders on Twitter, we recognize that this is largely new ground and unprecedented,” Twitter said in a blog post. “We understand the desire for our decisions to be ‘yes/no’ binaries, but it’s not that simple. The actions we take and policies we develop will set precedent around online speech and we owe it to the people we serve to be deliberate and considered in what we do.”

Twitter said the following types of tweets will lead to enforcement, regardless of who is making the posts:

  • Promotion of terrorism
  • Clear and direct threats of violence against an individual (context matters: as noted above, direct interactions with fellow public figures and/or commentary on political and foreign policy issues would likely not result in enforcement)
  • Posting private information, such as a home address or non-public personal phone number
  • Posting or sharing intimate photos or videos of someone that were produced or distributed without their consent
  • Engaging in behaviors relating to child sexual exploitation
  • Encouraging or promoting self-harm.

Twitter revealed a new enforcement policy for politicians and other influential users in June that labels tweets that are in violation of the platform’s policies instead of deleting them. However, that policy is only in place for Twitter accounts with 100,000 or more followers.

The company said it will leave controversial tweets intact for the sake of discussion, and so that people can engage with statements made by political leaders.

“Our mission is to provide a forum that enables people to be informed and to engage their leaders directly,” Twitter said in the blog post clarifying its policies for world leaders.

Twitter’s saftey account said that offending tweets will be marked with a new warning label that makes it impossible to like reply, share or retweet the tweet in question. However, users would be able to express their opinions on the tweet by using the “Retweet with Comment” function that provides a link to the original moderated tweet.

As the 2020 presidential candidates and other politicians continue to rely more heavily on Twitter as a platform for policy and discussion, they have also questioned the rules of engagement. Earlier this month, Sen. Kamala Harris, a Democratic presidential candidate, wrote a letter asking Twitter to ban US President Donald Trump for six tweets that she felt violated the companies policies.

Harris specifically identified six tweets that coultargeted or threatened someone, or could incite violence – all of which would violate Twitter’s user agreement. Twitter confirmed that it received the letter, but told Business Insider the blog post on world leaders was a separate announcement.

In August, Twitter temporarily suspended an account belonging to Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election campaign after it posted a video that included violent threats against the senator. Twitter reinstated the account after the campaign appealed the decision and the Republican National Committee threatened to stop funding campaign advertisements on Twitter.

The video posted by @Team_Mitch was reinstated with a sensitive content label.

Source: BusinessInsider