Twitter may annotate tweets from Donald Trump and other officials if they violate its policies

Twitter has a new plan to tackle tweets that violate its policies. 

Soon, the company may add annotations to tweets from politicians, including President Donald Trump, when they violate Twitter rules, Vijaya Gadde, the company’s head of legal, policy, and trust and safety, told the Washington Post. 

The feature would primarily be used to address tweets that may contain offensive content or outright break its rules, but are still deemed to be in the public interest.

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Twitter has a new plan to tackle tweets that violate its policies. Soon, the firm may annotate tweets from politicians, including President Donald Trump, when they violate Twitter rules

‘One of the things we’re working really closely on with our product and engineering folks is, “How can we label that?”‘ Gadde told the Post. 

‘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.’  

The firm is exploring adding annotations to certain tweets from pubic officials in order to signify that they violate its policies. 

It didn’t specify how this would work or who the new annotations would apply to. 

Twitter has struggled to address how to police these kinds of content in the past. 

The platform has expanded its efforts to foster ‘healthy’ conversations on Twitter, with CEO Jack Dorsey speaking at length about how this is a main focus of the company.

Yet, Twitter has failed to take action on some offensive content.

In particular, the firm has chosen to keep up the numerous tweets posted by Trump wherein he has attacked his foes, including the late Sen. John McCain, Democrats and news organizations. 

Twitter has been criticized in the past for not taking action on some of Donald Trump’s tweets, some of which include insults of political foes

Twitter so far draws the line at tweets that are a direct threat to someone else. Otherwise, it says it will leave some objectionable content on the platform if it is newsworthy

In another case, Trump spread an anti-Muslim propaganda video from a British far-right account.

Previously, Twitter explained why it didn’t remove Trump’s offensive tweets by saying: ‘Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate. 

‘It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions,’ the company said.

In the past, Trump also shared an anti-Muslim propaganda video. Twitter has struggled with how it should deal with his posts

Now, it seems to have shifted its view. 

‘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 told the Post. 

Twitter will leave some objectionable content up if it’s deemed newsworthy, but it draws the line at tweets that are a direct threat to someone else. 

‘There is absolutely a line of a type of content, an example being 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 told the Post. 

‘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.’  

Gadde said the firm is also considering hiding dehumanizing tweets, making it so that a user would have to click through in order to view the tweet. 

In doing so, users would be forced to acknowledge what the tweet is and decide whether or not they want to see it, she said.   

HOW DOES TWITTER TAKE ACTION AGAINST OFFENDING ACCOUNTS?

Twitter can go after offending accounts from the tweet-level, direct message-level and account-level, according to the company’s website.

The company said it will take action against accounts when their behavior violates ‘Twitter Rules’ or it may be in response to a ‘valid and properly scoped’ request from an ‘authorized entity in a given country’.

Twitter may instruct a user to delete a tweet that violates the site’s terms, hide a tweet as it ‘awaits its deletion’ or it may even make a tweet ‘less visible’ on the site by limiting how often it appears in search results, replies or timelines.

Twitter takes a variety of steps to prevent offending accounts from using the site. In the case of its latest purge, Twitter asked suspicious accounts to verify their phone number

The company can also stop users from direct messaging another user by removing the conversation from the user who reported the incidents’ inbox.

If a certain accounts violates Twitter’s policies, the company can make certain media unavailable, place an account in read-only mode, by removing their ability to post tweets, retweet, or like content ‘until calmer heads prevail’.

Twitter may also ask a user to verify account ownership, typically by requesting they verify an email or phone number linked to the account.

In extreme scenarios, Twitter may permanently suspend an account from global view, or the violator will not be allowed to create a new account.