Youth-focused Snapchat on Wednesday accused Trump of inciting “racial violence”. (File)
London:
A senior Twitter official on Thursday refused to rule out the suspension of Donald Trump’s account if the U.S. president continues to publish inflammatory messages such as those regarding the George Floyd protests.
Trump used Twitter to spread his message without submitting to journalists’ questions. Its 81.7 million followers made @realDonaldTrump one of the top 10 most popular Twitter accounts.
But the U.S. leader has been at war with the social media platform he uses on a daily basis since he made the unprecedented decision to verify two of his tweets on ballots last month.
Twitter followed this on Friday by concealing a message from Trump warning protesters outraged at the death of unarmed black man Floyd at the hands of police that “when the looting begins, the shooting begins.”
A post above this tweet warned that it was “violating Twitter’s rules on glorifying violence.” Viewers had to click on the message to view the original Trump post.
Twitter director of public policy strategy Nick Pickles said at a UK parliamentary hearing on Thursday that the platform had decided to subject Trump’s tweets to the same review process as all other characters audited audiences.
“Whenever a user’s tweet is posted and posted, we consider it according to our rules,” Pickles said during a virtual hearing of the multi-stakeholder digital committee.
“If a user on Twitter continues to break our rules, then we will continue to have discussions on all avenues available to us.”
Pickles was then asked twice if this meant that Trump’s account could be suspended if he continued to break the rules.
“Every Twitter account is subject to the rules of Twitter,” he said each time.
Twitter’s decision to check the facts and hide Trump’s publication put pressure on Facebook and other social media platforms to follow suit.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to punish Trump’s false or inflammatory publications sparked a virtual riot of hundreds of company employees on Monday.
Zuckerberg said in his defense that he mentioned “inflammation and harm” when he answered a call from Trump last Friday.
Youth-focused Snapchat on Wednesday accused Trump of inciting “racial violence” and warned that he would not promote such content.
(This story has not been edited by GalacticGaming staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
