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Regular-article-logo Monday, 06 May 2024

Twitter warning on lawmaker’s tweet

'The tweet is in violation of our glorification of violence policy'

Kate Conger California Published 02.06.20, 09:20 PM
The post from Representative Matt Gaetz had likened protesters to terrorists

The post from Representative Matt Gaetz had likened protesters to terrorists (Shutterstock)

Days after restricting one of President Trump’s posts from view for glorifying violence, Twitter went at it again.

On Monday, the social media service used the same label to hide a message by Representative Matt Gaetz, Republican of Florida — which likened those who were protesting police violence to terrorists and called for them to be hunted down. The move also meant that the tweet could not be retweeted or liked, to prevent it from being amplified.

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“Now that we clearly see Antifa as terrorists, can we hunt them down like we do those in West Asia?” Gaetz had tweeted on Monday, referring to the far-left anti-fascist activist movement. Shortly after his tweet was hidden, he reposted a message from the president that called for a law that gives technology companies some legal immunities to be revoked. “Their warning is my badge of honour,” he wrote later on Monday.

Twitter last week engaged in a face-off with the President after adding fact-check labels to two of his tweets and then restricting a post in which Trump said that looting during the protests would lead to shooting. While the San Francisco company was applauded by some for taking more responsibility for the kinds of posts that appear on its platform, others said it was biased against conservatives like Trump.

Still, Twitter acted again, hiding Gaetz’s post behind a warning label — though it stopped short of taking down his message altogether.

“The Tweet is in violation of our glorification of violence policy,” a Twitter spokesman said.

Twitter last year announced a labelling system that marks tweets from public figures that violate its policies while allowing the messages to remain because they are the subject of significant public interest. But it did not use the system to flag any messages from US politicians until Friday, when Trump weighed in on the clashes between the police and protesters in Minneapolis.

New York Times News Service

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