Twitter Says It Will Not Suspend Trump’s Twitter Account After Calls To Out The President
Twitter has set its record straight on shutting down President Donald Trump’s twitter account after allegations that his tweets are violating Twitter policies, democratic rights and human rights surfaced. In a tweet, Kamala Harris, a senator and presidential hopeful said “Here we have Donald Trump, who has 65 million Twitter followers and is using that platform as the president of the United States to openly intimidate witnesses, to threaten witnesses, to obstruct justice, and he and his account should be taken down,”
Harris, a Democrat wrote a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey early this month, saying that President Trump “appears to violate the terms of the user agreement that your company requires all users on the platform” and encouraged him to take punitive action. She pointed to the president’s tweets calling the Ukraine whistleblower a “leaker,” “spy,” or “partisan operative,” and arguing he deserves to “meet my accuser.” She went ahead to tell Dorsey that attacking the House Intelligence Committee chair Adam Schiff (D-CA) and suggesting removing him from office would cause a civil war, through the platform, was unacceptable.
Twitter has, however, come out to defend the US president saying that his views are often of public interest and just like other world leaders, their accounts are not above Twitter’s policies entirely and therefore, the main agenda to this account is to engage their leaders directly.
According to the social media company, in a situation Donald Trump violates its policies, he will stay online if the content has a clear public interest value.”direct interactions with fellow public figures, comments on political issues of the day, or foreign policy saber-rattling on economic or military issues are generally not in violation” read a statement by Twitter.
Twitter insists that context will matter when determining whether or not to shut down an account. This is not the first time the platform is coming under fire for not suspending Donald Trump’s account with complains that he is still online while the policies dictate otherwise.
