Twitter has denounced as a platform policy violation all tweets expressing a wish for US President Donald Trump’s death following his announcement that he and First Lady Melania Trump have been diagnosed with coronavirus.
The social media platform tweeted on Friday that “wishing or hoping serious harm on a person or group of people” went against its “Abusive Behavior policy”, with such posts liable to be removed.
The current policy had been in place since April, applicable to all users, and not just in connection with the recent developments surrounding Donald Trump, a spokesman for the company was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
The spokesperson elaborated that while some users would be suspended, the company will not be acting on every tweet.
“We’re prioritizing the removal of content when it has a clear call to action that could potentially cause real-world harm,” the spokesperson was cited by The Motherboard as saying.
It was later added that people who explicitly express wishes for the president to die may have to remove their tweets and may have their account put into a “read only” mode.
As wishes of well-being for Donald Trump and his spouse have been flooding in from all across the globe, many people on Twitter, including his Democratic opponent in the November elections Joe Biden, also wished him a speedy recovery.
However, there were those who in no uncertain terms voiced the hope that Trump dies from the virus. Incensed users of the social media platform lambasted the President for having initially downplayed the dangers of the novel respiratory disease that has killed more than 200,000 people in the United States.
The country has currently registered over 7, 333 000 cases of COVID-19, according to the Johns Hopkins University.
While some worried about the violating the Twitter policy, others seemed less concerned.
The current policy announcement from Twitter was slammed as hypocritical by others, who pointed out that some users, particularly in marginalized communities, regularly receive death threats with little response from the company.
Nevertheless, in light of the rule refresher, many on Twitter were undeterred, expressing their sentiments in censored versions.