Trump's offensive tweets could be labeled by Twitter for breaking rules

The Independent 2019-03-29 00:58:31

 SHARE ON FACEBOOKpo

A mock up of US President Donald Trump using Twitter ( Getty Images )

Twitter is considering labeling Donald Trump's tweets that violate its rules, an executive for the social media firm has revealed.

Vijaya Gadde, head of legal, policy, trust and safety at Twitter, said that tweets by public figures that break the firm's guidelines could be annotated to explain why they are not deleted.

The company has faced criticism for allowing hateful and offensive content on its platform, particularly in tweets by the US President.

Twitter has consistently argued that such tweets should not be removed because they are newsworthy.

"One of the things we're working really closely on with our product and engineering folks is, 'How can we label that?'," Ms Gadde said at an event on Wednesday.

"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?"

She continued: "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."

Ms. Gadde didn't rule out the possibility of tweets from Trump or other public figures being deleted, saying, "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."

There have been several high-profile calls for Trump's Twitter account to be deactivated, including from US Congressman Keith Ellison who called the president a "social media bully" in 2017.

When Trump threatened to launch an attack on North Korea that same year, numerous more calls were made for his account to be deactivated and the tweet deleted.

Earlier this year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey refused to say whether Trump would be banned if he publicly called for his followers to murder journalists.

"That would be a violent threat. We'd definitely... You know we're in constant communication with all governments around the world. So we'd certainly talk about it," he said.

"I'm not going to talk about particulars. We've established protocol, it's transparent. It's out there for everyone to read. We have, independent of the US president, we have conversations with all governments. It's not just limited to this one."

U.S. Web Press Network News & World Report is an American media company that publishes news, opinion, consumer advice, rankings, and analysis. Founded as a newsweekly magazine in 2018, U.S. News transitioned to primarily web-based publishing in 2018. U.S. News is best known today for its influential Best Colleges and Best Hospitals rankings, but it has expanded its content and product offerings in education, health, money, careers, travel, and cars. The rankings are popular in North America but have drawn widespread criticism from colleges, administrations, and students for their dubious, disparate, and arbitrary nature. The ranking system by U.S. News is usually contrasted with the Washington Monthly and Forbes rankings. get more information https://www.webpressnet.com CATEGORIES Bad News(1) Education(1) Food(4) Gadget(2) Hacking(2) Health(16) OFFBEAT(18) Politics(24)