Puppet of US president Donald Trump with missiles at a parade in Turin, Italy. Image: MikeDotta/Shutterstock
Despite contradicting its abuse policy, Twitter will keep Trump’s ‘little rocket man’ tweet up out of public interest.
When Twitter was first writing its policies on online abuse, it surely was not expecting the president of the US to be the one to shine a light on some of its oversights.
After Donald Trump’s latest tweet aimed squarely at North Korea as part of the two countries’ ongoing war of words, Twitter had to step in.
Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 24, 2017
According to The Verge, Trump’s tweet clearly violates Twitter’s promise of banning or punishing accounts that threaten other individuals or groups, but the company said that the tweet will remain because it is “newsworthy” and falls under the public interest.
In a series of tweets, the TwitterPublicPolicy account said that this oversight has been a long-running issue for its management, and it will soon update its public-facing rules for the sake of transparency.
While it admitted that it needs to “do better than this”, it also indicated that as the president, almost everything that Trump says will remain on Twitter.
What is and isn’t bannable
However, it still remains unclear as to how exactly Twitter will word the policy change, as it would need to determine whose comments are newsworthy and whose aren’t.
One of the most notable examples of Twitter enacting an outright ban is journalist Milo Yiannopoulos, whose controversial opinions around topics such as feminism, class and identity were dubbed as hate speech.
The Trump tweet that led to this response is currently pushing the US and North Korea to the brink of conflict, with North Korea’s foreign minister, Ri Yong-ho, saying Trump’s tweet was effectively a declaration of war.
If an American aircraft should come within proximity of the country’s borders, he added, they would not hesitate to shoot it down.
Puppet of US president Donald Trump with missiles at a parade in Turin, Italy. Image: MikeDotta/Shutterstock
