Twitter considers annotating tweets from Donald Trump and other officials if they violate its policies as it struggles to crack down on offensive content that may be of public interest
Twitter has a new plan to tackle tweets that violate its policies.
Soon, the company may add annotations to tweets from politicians, including President Donald Trump, when they violate Twitter rules, Vijaya Gadde, the company's head of legal, policy, and trust and safety, told the Washington Post.
The feature would primarily be used to address tweets that may contain offensive content or outright break its rules, but are still deemed to be in the public interest.
'One of the things we're working really closely on with our product and engineering folks is, "How can we label that?"' Gadde told the Post.
'How can we put some context around it so people are aware that that content is actually a violation of our rules and it is serving a particular purpose in remaining on the platform.'
The firm is exploring adding annotations to certain tweets from pubic officials in order to signify that they violate its policies.
It didn't specify how this would work or who the new annotations would apply to.
Twitter has struggled to address how to police these kinds of content in the past.
The platform has expanded its efforts to foster 'healthy' conversations on Twitter, with CEO Jack Dorsey speaking at length about how this is a main focus of the company.
Yet, Twitter has failed to take action on some offensive content.
In particular, the firm has chosen to keep up the numerous tweets posted by Trump wherein he has attacked his foes, including the late Sen. John McCain, Democrats and news organizations.
In another case, Trump spread an anti-Muslim propaganda video from a British far-right account.
Previously, Twitter explained why it didn't remove Trump's offensive tweets by saying: 'Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate.
'It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions,' the company said.
Now, it seems to have shifted its view.
'When we leave that content on the platform there's no context around that and it just lives on Twitter and people can see it and they just assume that is the type of content or behavior that's allowed by our rules,' Gadde told the Post.
Twitter will leave some objectionable content up if it's deemed newsworthy, but it draws the line at tweets that are a direct threat to someone else.
'There is absolutely a line of a type of content, an example being a direct, violent threat against an individual that we wouldn't leave on the platform because of the danger it poses to that individual,' Gadde told the Post.
'But, there are other types of content that we believe are newsworthy or in the public interest that people may want to have a conversation around.'
Gadde said the firm is also considering hiding dehumanizing tweets, making it so that a user would have to click through in order to view the tweet.
In doing so, users would be forced to acknowledge what the tweet is and decide whether or not they want to see it, she said.
