Twitter has announced that it has added a notification that bar users from accessing offensive or violent tweets, especially from influential persons and politicians.
As a user, you will not come across a tweet that is offensive, one that contains explicit content, threats that may bring up violence, conveys abusive messages, hateful behavior or targeted harassments but you will instead see a notification about the tweet.
The notification will give you a warning as to whether you would want to view the content of the tweet or not. The twitter algorithms will prevent you from sharing such tweets with other users.
Government officials, those candidates seeking public offices, users who have their accounts verified and those with 100,000 followers and more will be the ones targeted.
The united states president Donald Trump, had complained that Twitter has been limiting his tweets purposefully making it impossible for users to access his tweets and even unable to follow him.
It is quite evident that the rule was specifically directed towards Trump as his statements have been breaching the twitter rules time and again. The American president has been attacking most world leaders and other political rivals in his tweets passing violent and threat messages.
The notification 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…” but then it gives an option.
The decision of whether to delete the tweet or not will then be upon the account owner.
Flagged-off-tweets will also not appear on the user’s safe search mode, user’s timeline, live events, push notifications, notifications and even the explore feature.
To sum it up, any Twitter user that is of public interest and has a vast influence on the public’s opinion and behavior will eventually be booked for these restrictions.