Twitter Placed A Warning Label On A Second Trump Tweet That Glorified Violence Against Minneapolis Protestors

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Twitter placed an early Friday tweet from President Donald Trump about the Minneapolis protests behind a warning label after deeming that it violated the company’s rules about glorifying violence.

The social network did not remove the tweet, allowing users to click through an interstitial link to access it because “it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.” The tweet, the second in a two-part thread from the president, argued for violence to deal with instances of looting during the protests sparked by the police killing of George Floyd.

“These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen,” Trump tweeted at 12:53 a.m. in Washington, DC, referring to the 46-year-old black man who died after being detained by a white Minneapolis police officer. “Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

Floyd’s death, which came after a police officer crushed his neck under his knee while arresting him, sparked violent riots in Minneapolis this week. On Thursday night, protestors clashed with officers in the area and set a police building on fire.

Twitter’s decision to label Trump’s tweet came after it took similar action earlier this week to deem a message from the president about mail-in ballots as misleading. That decision infuriated the White House, leading the president to sign an executive order on Thursday seeking to undermine the legal protections afforded to social media platforms around content moderation.

While legal scholars and critics of the president’s action believed that the executive order would hamstring social media companies from taking further steps against Trump, Twitter doubled down early Friday, labeling his Minneapolis tweet in violation of its policies on glorifying violence. As part of Twitter’s restrictions, users will be unable to like, reply to, or retweet the tweet, although retweets with a comment are still possible.

The tweet is part of a two part thread. The user needs to actively click through to view the tweet, adding another level of action.

07:25 AM – 29 May 2020

“You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people,” read Twitter rules, which were updated in March 2019. “We also prohibit the glorification of violence.”

When asked for comment, a Twitter spokesperson directed BuzzFeed News to a Twitter thread from the company’s public relations account.

“We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the Tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the Tweet given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance,” the company said.

While Twitter typically forces users to remove or delete tweets glorifying violence, it has noted in the past that there is a higher standard when it comes to taking action against messages from world leaders. In the past, Trump has used his Twitter account, which has more than 80 million followers, to flirt with the idea of nuclear war. Twitter did not take action against those messages.

In the case of Trump’s Minneapolis tweet, the San Francisco-based company decided that the message was in violation of its rules. The company took more than two hours to take action before placing the label on top of the message.

As of publication time, Trump has not tweeted again.

Source

Pool / Getty Images Twitter placed an early Friday tweet from President Donald Trump about the Minneapolis protests behind a warning label after deeming that it violated the company’s rules about glorifying violence. The social network did not remove the tweet, allowing users to click through an interstitial link to…

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