Just a few hours ever since the President of the United States has revealed that he was positive of COVID-19, there were a few people that started tweeting that they were in favor of the virus. An article by Motherboard mentioned that they have consulted Twitter regarding this behavior and were informed of the social media's current rules. It was said that tweets that were in favor or hoped for someone's death were strictly not allowed.
Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately. We will get through this TOGETHER! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2020
Twitter stated its rules
Twitter then told Motherboard that these particular rules have been in place ever since April but a quick look at the whole Internet Archive actually shows this specific policy previously part of Twitter's simplified rules that were rolled out back in the spring of 2019. Ever since the rules were released in June 2019, the rules have pretty much stayed the same.
It was stated in the rules that hoping for serious harm on either a person or a group of people will not be tolerated. Any content that is said to wish, hope, or express the desire for death or serious bodily harm or even fatal disease against a particular individual or even group that is not limited to statements like "hoping you get cancer" or "hoping you'll be run over by a car" or "deserve to get shot" will not be tolerated.
Clarifying the consequences
When confronting Twitter about this policy in an attempt to clarify things, Twitter's own communications department then explained that violation of these rules might not actually result in a suspended account but rather just a removed tweet. In certain earlier circumstances, the account could also be locked out.
In a separate matter, a certain Facebook spokesperson stated that their platform is actually also removing certain content that suddenly wishes for the president's own death. These include the posts or comments that are tagging him.
To be clear, we're removing death threats or content targeted directly at the president wishing him death, including comments on his posts or his page - in addition to content tagging him. — Liz Bourgeois (@Liz_Shepherd) October 2, 2020
Why now?
What a number of people are still wondering is how the policies by these social media platforms could have been applied even to the president's very own account, or even to the huge hordes of people that have already been casting death threats towards other people on the platform for years now and has not yet warranted any action.
While the policy is specifically trying to ban these types of posts still currently exists, there's still very little communication coming from both Twitter or Facebook as to why these particular bans could not have happened much earlier when conspiracy theorists as well as other extremists have started posting hate speech that led to violence.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Urian Buenconsejo
