That only applies to a subset of the rules, the ”Accounts that affiliate with organizations that use or promote violence against civilians to further their causes” part. (And seems to mean that merrely supporting an existing government or military isn't prohibited conduct, even though governments and their militaries sre groups that do, routinely, use violence and the implicit and explicit threat of violence as core operational methods, including against civilians.)

It does not (as stated) apply to the “Content that glorifies violence or the perpetrators of a violent act.”

Nor does it apply to the preexisting hateful conduct policy, “You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. ”

Of course, they have been inconsistent in enforcing the existing policy and given certain high-profile Twitter users a pass on it without an explicit exception, so one would expect that to continue with the new policies even where no explicit exception applies.

That is interesting, as it reinforces the power of incumbency. If you’re the president you can say whatever you like, but if you’re a presidential challenger you have to play by the rules.

Seems a little unclear on that. Can a candidate say "If you elect me to office, I pledge to wage war against the elbonians" and post it on Twitter?

We know that Twitter is willing to ban US political ads that violate their personal values.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/10/twitter-bans-bl...

Oh man, if the Equal Time Rule applied to digital media, the AG would have a field day with that

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

That ad was rejected because of a line that was linked libelously untruthful. In the article you linked it says that Twitter would run the ad with the offending line edited out.

I believe that particular decision was probably somewhat about disagreeing with her politics, but moreso about stopping outright lies ("fake news") from propagating on their platform when they could stop it.

You're talking about the "sale of baby body parts", right?

Scandalous? Yes. Libelous? The NY Times described the practice:

> Companies that obtain [fetal] tissue from clinics and sell it to laboratories exist in a gray zone, legally. Federal law says they cannot profit from the tissue itself, but the law does not specify how much they can charge for processing and shipping.

> ...

> Many [labs] buy the tissue from companies that act as middlemen. Those companies pay small fees, usually $100 or less a specimen, to abortion providers like Planned Parenthood, who say they charge only what they need to cover their expenses. The companies then process the tissue and sell it to researchers for higher prices that reflect the processing.

> The fees, which can run to thousands of dollars for a tiny vial of cells, do not break the law, according to Arthur Caplan, the director of the division of medical ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center.

> “It appears to be legal, no matter how much you charge,” Dr. Caplan said, adding that there appears to be little or no oversight of the processing fees. “It’s a very gray and musty area as to what you can charge.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/28/health/fetal-tissue-from-...

Interesting, thanks for correcting my impressions.

Regardless of whether the claims in the video are true or 100% false, Twitter is willing to silence speech from a political candidate under (at the very least) these circumstances.

They refused to run a misleading (at best) ad campaign. I would ask you, do you consider that Breitbart or Fox News should be obligated to run ads for Bernie Sanders, or Elizabeth Warren? Or should they be allowed to reject ads based on content that the ownership disagrees with?

Slippery slope. How many rappers will get banned for promoting violence through their music? Guns, violence and misogyny are part and parcel of rap music these days.

That's true for some rap but not all rap. There's also a subset of rap that to me shows some of the strongest promotion of equality and peace.

> promotion of equality and peace

I thought that was Hip-Hop

Yeah, this is absolute doublespeak. Twitter's not 'enforcing' anything, and as others have pointed out, they are actually making the situation worse. Now it's clear that even Twitter says if you're rich and famous you can be abusive without the same consequences as someone who is not wealthy. Ridiculous.

Nobody has ever held Trump accountable for anything. Hilariously, Twitter holds a lot of power over Trump due to controlling his popular account. They could hold him accountable. They choose not to. Insane.

> Nobody has ever held Trump accountable for anything. Hilariously, Twitter holds a lot of power over Trump due to controlling his popular account. They could hold him accountable. They choose not to. Insane.

Trump is the elected president of USA, one of the most important country on Earth. The fact that you suggest a private company should police his speak is insane to me.

If the President (any of them) posted here at HN, and starting saying things against the site and community rules, then I would 100% hope that the moderators would "police his speak".

The President is a person, not a god. If they want to use a private platform to speak, then they have to accept that platform's rules, just like anyone else. If they don't like that platform's policy, then they can use any other platform in the world.

To those downvoting me, do you think CNN, BBC and all major news outlets should only report what Trump does, but never actually show a video of him speak to deny him a platform?

Twitter is not journalism. And as you yourself have pointed out, Trump is one of the most powerful people on earth—meaning he has at his disposal more platforms than any of us can even dream of. Twitter can no more "police his speech" than I can police all of Facebook.

What Twitter can do is decide they don't want Trump to be an active member of their community. That is not just within their legal rights; it's well within their moral rights too.

Should twitter also ban the accounts of the president of Russia and the president of China, because of their support of policies which violate human rights? (LGBT, Tibet, democracy, the list is long, pick your favorite).

What about the account of Barack Obama, who supported extra-judicial drone killings of US citizens?

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/14/13577464/...

You're conflating a lot here. People think Trump should be banned from Twitter because of the inflammatory content of his tweets, not because of objectionable things he does elsewhere. Unless Barack Obama made a bunch of tweets exhorting drone strikes that I'm unaware of, the comparison you're suggesting doesn't go through.

If they're contributing to or creating an atmosphere Twitter doesn't want on their service, then yes, why not?

Twitter isn't news, it's social media. I'm perfectly okay with private organizations policing their own content, especially when hosting that content has costs.

> The fact that you suggest a private company should police his speak is insane to me.

A private company cannot and should not police the President’s speech.

However, it can and should (insofar as it does for other users) police the President’s use of that company’s platform for speech.

The alternative is systematically favoring the government against opponents in a way which makes Twitter a de facto government propaganda arm.

If Donald Trump joined a site I was in charge of and broke the rules, I'd damn well police 'his speak'. A good community manager needs to be willing to slam the hammer down on anyone who breaks the rules, regardless of whether they're a pariah within the community scraping by with nothing in real life or a government figure, celebrity or billionaire.

The fact Twitter (and a lot of other companies running community/social media sites nowadays) don't seem to have the guts to do this shows how bad they are at enforcing their own 'guidelines'.

But yeah, if Trump joined a service I was in charge of and broke the rules, he'd get punished like any other user would for doing the same thing.

Of course not. He is welcome to issue a press release and even post in on his own website - it is just that nobody reads is there, so he has to post on Twitter.

Fun aside, as being forced to house soldiers on your property is enumerated as forbidden, and that the president is the commander in chief, does that mean Twitter could kick him out based on that?

> Fun aside, as being forced to house soldiers on your property is enumerated as forbidden

If you want to take it literally, USA is not Trump's property.

Why is this insane to you? Where are you from?

From a country which lived under an authoritative regime and who knows what censorship will lead to.

Hmm I misread your comment.

Still, a private company can do whatever it wants.

Fact is, regardless, Twitter will never censor Trump or it’ll be the end of Twitter.

But still, it’s a private company that’s not FCC regulated (yet).

Sure, Twitter is currently a private company. However, it's also a major forum used in the expression of speech in our country. At what point is a public website considered a public forum?

If we have a constitutional right to free speech, and the majority of Americans use a certain website for speech, why shouldn't their constitutional rights extend onto that site?

> why shouldn't their constitutional rights extend onto that site?

Because their involvement with Twitter is at will, because Twitter is a private institution, and because privacy is scared to our freedom. But mostly perhaps because twitter has not yet been designated a common carrier by the government, which many people are suggesting. I don’t really see twitter as a good fit for that, but then again, I’m not a legal scholar or lawmaker.

I'd say it's exactly because the US is not an authoritative regime that the same rules should apply for both random nobodies and the President.

I think Twitter holds exactly zero power over Trump which is why they won't do anything about him even though they would certainly love to.

He is bringing them traffic and giving them more legitimacy than they have ever had before.

If they banned him he would just switch to another social network and spend the next year telling his supporters to boycott them and then find some creative ways to shaft them through the regulatory state.

Look at the situation with CNN and the ATT/Time Warner merger. Twitter is a very small fish compared to them.