You knew this was coming just in time for the 2020 elections didn’t you? Twitter has announced they will begin suppressing some of Trump’s tweets that they claim violate its rules, although these tweets would remain on the site because they were in the public interest.
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After the policy goes into effect, tweets by world leaders that Twitter believes violate its rules would include a disclaimer that reads:
The Twitter Rules about abusive behavior apply to this Tweet. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain available.
When a tweet is assigned this disclaimer, users will have to click through before they can see the tweet in question.
A spokesperson for Twitter told CNN Business “[t]his is not about perceived bias but about providing more clarity if our rules have been broken.” Leaving these tweets on the website, the company said, could promote accountability for statements made by political figures or leaders.
It would apply to candidates and appointees as well as current officials, but only to those with more than 100,000 Twitter followers, according to a blog post by Twitter.
In addition to the disclaimer, flagged tweets would also fail to appear in the notifications tab, the Explore feature, live events pages, the Top Tweets feature on a user’s timeline, safe search, or any push notifications for recommended tweets.