A Twitter executive on Wednesday said the company is considering a new feature that will label tweets from politicians, including President Trump Donald John TrumpTrump says wind power doesn't work because 'it only blows sometimes' Fuel standards to prevent overdependence on foreign oil are out of date Trump knocks MSNBC, CNN rankings: 'Fake News never wins!' MORE, when they violate Twitter rules.
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter's head of legal, policy, and trust and safety, at a Washington Post event on Wednesday said the company might start annotating offensive tweets from public figures with a message about why they remain up.
Twitter has long held that some posts from public figures should remain up because they are "newsworthy," even when they violate Twitter guidelines.
"One of the things we’re working really closely on with our product and engineering folks is, ‘How can we label that?’" Gadde said during the Post event. “How can we put some context around it so people are aware that that content is actually a violation of our rules and it is serving a particular purpose in remaining on the platform?"
Gadde was responding to a question about whether Trump is allowed to say whatever he wants on Twitter.
"When we leave that content on the platform there’s no context around that and it just lives on Twitter and people can see it and they just assume that is the type of content or behavior that’s allowed by our rules," Gadde said.
Twitter's policies dictate that tweets from politicians are important to public debate.
Trump has used his Twitter account to insult and berate his foes, including news organizations, Democrats, actors and more, raising questions from critics about why Twitter does not step in.
Gadde said the newsworthiness clause does not protect all tweets from a public figure.
"An example would be a direct violent threat against an individual that we wouldn't leave on the platform because of the danger it poses to that individual," Gadde said.
“But there are other types of content that we believe are newsworthy or in the public interest that people may want to have a conversation around," she added.
lightknight7777 on March 28th, 2019 at 16:39 UTC »
Sounds like a bluff.
You don't issue a statement saying you might consider enforcing your rules for once, you just start enforcing your rules.
They'd just have to do it to a lot of others too.
CoolAppz on March 28th, 2019 at 16:30 UTC »
I call that bluff. They don't have the balls.
B0h1c4 on March 28th, 2019 at 16:30 UTC »
Not just Trump tweets...all public and political figure tweets.
And I think they should enforce the rules equally regardless of who tweeted it. It seems so strange that they would go to lengths to delete tweets and/or ban small time users with limited reach and visibility. Yet allow famous, powerful users violate the same rules on a much larger stage.
Are they fighting against actions or people? Treat all people and all actions equally.