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from the It's-not-bannable-if-it's-the-president's-tweet dept.
Many Twitter users have reported threats of genocide and the use of weapons of mass destruction by one Twitterati in particular, but Twitter does not think these violate the terms of usage at Twitter. Tweet, at Mashable.
The President of the United States possibly made another threat of nuclear war on Twitter, but the company doesn't seem to think the post breaks any of its rules. Donald Trump boasted on Twitter about how his nuclear button was bigger than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's, and people are calling (again) for the president to be banned from the platform.
Folks on Twitter are asking the platform whether this violates its policy against violent threats. So far the response from Twitter has been in the form of an automated response in which Twitter says Trump's message represents "no violation of the Twitter Rules against abusive behavior."
Mashable checked, just in case:
Twitter confirmed to Mashable that "this Tweet did not violate our terms of service," referencing the Twitter Rules against violent threats and glorification of violence.
"You may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease of an individual or group of people," the rules state.
So it seems that if you are going to threaten serious "physical harm, death or disease" on Twitter, be sure to include everyone by using nukes, instead of just one individual or group.
(Score: 2) by BK on Monday January 08 2018, @12:04AM
Twitter, and social media in general, has a problem. Twitter in this case. But also the others like face***k and you*u** and many others.
They all got their start, to some degree, as a platform for free(ish) speech. They took all comers and published anything as long as it wasn't actually illegal (in California). The content was the responsibility of the poster and did not need to be pre-approved. Hell, THIS SITE [soylentnews.org] relies on that model.
We praised them when they facilitated communication among revolutionaries in north Africa. I suppose we can thank them for Libya?
But then the bigs gave in to certain MAFIAA-like rent seekers and began trying to control the content. And increasingly to other legal jurisdictions with contradictory laws. They actually exert control of the content they allow to be published while asserting that they shouldn't be accountable for some/most/all/any of the bad things.
Governments, sensing that they can (the moral absolute having been surrendered...), now want to ban radical or incendiary posts and videos and whatnot. Sure, it's just political speech by unpopular folks who publicly hate 'brown folks' (their name is Neo... something) and by religious-political pedophiles [wikipedia.org] (err... Muslims?), but 'not-at-all-fascist' western democracies are working to ban political speech while pretending to advocate 'free speech'.
And now enter the SJWs. They pressure advertisers to not allow their adds to appear next to unpopular speech (unpopular with SJWs...)... and of course, the bigs fold.
But they have a problem. Trump and co. are unpopular with those SJWs, but could regulate them into oblivion simply by noticing that they now really DO control the content on their sites. Imagine if they could be sued every time someone was offended by a tweet or a cat video! Worse, they want to still be able to pretend to not control content in other jurisdictions, and they want the US Government to back that position.
So they have to let Trump do what he wants. They can pretend that by letting Trump speak that they still support the idea of free speech to resist unworkable laws. Maybe.
...but you HAVE heard of me.