Twitter hides Donald Trump tweet for glorifying violence

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Twitter has hidden a tweet from US President Donald Trump for the first time. According to the platform, the tweet “glorified violence.” That’s against Twitter’s rules, but the company has decided not to delete the tweet entirely.

Twitter says so the president’s tweet violates the rules of the platform. Trump tweeted about the protests in Minneapolis. There, demonstrations and riots broke out after a black man was killed in an arrest. Trump calls the protesters “thugs,” or crooks, and says he wants to send the military into the city. “When the looting begins, the shooting begins,” the president wrote. With that last statement, he “glorifies violence,” according to Twitter.

Twitter did not delete the tweet. However, users will not see the tweet in their timeline. Instead, they see a block of text stating that the tweet is against the rules. Users will not see the tweet until they click through. “Twitter has decided that it is in the public interest that the tweet remains accessible.” Users can also not retweet the tweet, but only quote tweet.

The social network’s terms and conditions state that the glorification of violence is not allowed. Normally, a tweet can be deleted for this, and in structural cases an account can be blocked completely. In the case of the president, that did not happen.

Social media has been grappling with the behavior of the US president for some time. He regularly makes controversial statements that push the boundaries of the policy or appear to break the rules. Until now, the platforms have maintained that the president’s tweets were in the public interest and therefore were not removed. Tweets with fake news about the coronavirus by Brazilian President Bolsanaro, for example, were removed.

Twitter also took action against the president on Wednesday. The platform put a label on a tweet about vote fraud that the statement was incorrect, containing links to fact checks. The president is angry about that, and now wants to regulate social media platforms more.

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