Trump to Lose Twitter Protection After Presidency | News

Twitter has, on multiple occasions, indicated that Donald Trump operates under a different set of guidelines than typical users. This special consideration has permitted him to publish statements that would likely result in immediate suspension for any other individual on the platform.

The service has recently attempted to address the spread of inaccurate information through the use of warning labels, which are displayed either beneath or over the offending text. Twitter implemented these labels rapidly in the period leading up to the election on November 3rd. While the rate of labeling has decreased since then, moderators are still identifying numerous tweets from Trump as containing unsubstantiated or deceptive assertions regarding the election outcomes.

During a Congressional hearing yesterday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey affirmed that, following his departure from office, Trump will no longer receive the same level of protection. The executive stated, “When an account no longer represents a world leader, that specific policy is no longer applicable.”

The exact implications of this change are still unclear, and some Republican officials suggest that the timing of Trump’s transition out of office remains uncertain. However, it appears plausible that Trump could face account suspension or even a permanent ban once Twitter no longer designates his account as a matter of public record.

Twitter provided TechCrunch with the following statement concerning Trump’s account after his presidency: “A key aspect of our platform is providing a space where individuals can freely and publicly engage with and scrutinize their leaders. Keeping this in mind, there are instances where public access to certain Tweets may be deemed beneficial, even if those Tweets would typically violate our policies.”

The circumstances that would lead to a sitting world leader’s removal from the platform or the deletion of their tweets are considerably more severe than those applied to other users, including:

As Dorsey pointed out during the hearing, Trump will (in principle) no longer benefit from these protections once he is no longer in office.