Does Twitter's New Hate Policy Have a Trump Exception?

Twitter announced new and stricter rules banning bigoted content and hate groups from its platform. It also said it would begin enforcing its anti-hate and violence rules more stringently than it has in the past. But “context matters when evaluating for abusive behavior,” warns Twitter, and they have included two big exceptions in the new policy. First, their ban on advocating violence against civilians does not apply to “military or government entities.” Second, they may moderate their own rules if “the behavior is newsworthy and in the legitimate public interest.” It’s not hard to figure out the famous Twitter user who might be most helped by those two loopholes.

These rules aren’t just an insurance policy for the company—they’ve already been used to shield the president from suspension. In September, when President Donald Trump warned in a tweet that “Little Rocket Man ... won’t be around much longer,” the company said that the threatening tweets didn’t violate its guidelines because they were “newsworthy.” Now the company has slapped on another policy, and President Trump—and other government and military leaders—will get the same monopoly on violence on Twitter that they already enjoy out in the world.