According to “The Twitter Rules,” posted on the Twitter website:
“Twitter’s purpose is to serve the public conversation. Violence, harassment and other similar types of behavior discourage people from expressing themselves, and ultimately diminish the value of global public conversation. Our rules are to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.”
Among these:
- Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
- Terrorism/violent extremism: You may not threaten or promote terrorism or violent extremism.
- Abuse/harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.
- Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against, threaten, or harass other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or serious disease.
That’s the official version of what Twitter users can expect from those charged with policing Twitter.
So why hasn’t Twitter policed—and purged—the single greatest abuser of its “Twitter Rules”: Donald Trump?
Consider:
Donald Trump’s tweet-first-and-never-mind-the-consequences approach to life has been thoroughly documented.
From June 15, 2015, when he launched his Presidential campaign, until October 24, 2016, he fired nearly 4,000 angry, insulting tweets at 281 people and institutions. The New York Times needed two full pages of its print edition to showcase them.
Donald Trump
Among these targets were:
- His Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton
- His fellow Republican Presidential candidates
- Actress Meryl Streep
- News organizations
- President Barack Obama
- Comedian John Oliver
- Obamacare
- Singer Neil Young
- The state of New Jersey
- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.
His Twitter assaults have often dominated entire news cycles for days on end.
As President-elect, he continued these assaults—such as the one on November 18, 2016.
On that evening, Vice President-elect Mike Pence attended a Broadway performance of the hit musical “Hamilton.”
After the curtain call, the actor Brandon Victor Dixon—who played Aaron Burr—respectfully addressed Pence:
“We are the diverse America who are alarmed and anxious that your new administration will not protect us, our friends, our children, our parents, or defend us and uphold our inalienable rights. But we truly hope that this show has inspired you to uphold our American values and to work on behalf of all of us.”
Dixon—who is black—was rightly alarmed.
Trump had received the open and enthusiastic support of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party and other white supremacist groups. Since his election, white thugs had assaulted blacks and other non-whites across the country.
Trump’s reaction to Dixon’s plea came in two Twitter rants:
“Our wonderful future V.P. Mike Pence was harassed last night at the theater by the cast of Hamilton, cameras blazing. This should not happen!”
And: “The Theater must always be a safe and special place. The cast of Hamilton was very rude last night to a very good man, Mike Pence. Apologize!”
And during his first two weeks as President, Trump attacked 22 people, places and things on his @realDonaldTrump account.
Then, on March 4, 2017, in a series of unhinged tweets, Trump accused former President Barack Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phones prior to the election.
President Barack Obama
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
“I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”
Thus, without offering a shred of evidence to back it up, Trump accused his predecessor—on Twitter—of committing an impeachable offense.
On May 9, 2017, Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey.
Reports soon surfaced that his reason for doing so was that Comey had refused to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump. 
James B. Comey
Just 72 hours after firing Comey, Trump issued a threat to him via Twitter: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
And Twitter’s reaction to such a blatant threat? Silence.
From the start of his Presidency, Trump has put his ambitions, excuses and rants on social media. And this has unnerved foreign leaders as well as Trump’s fellow Americans.As CNN Political Analyst Julian Zelizer outlined in a July 3, 2018 article:
“…The President’s ongoing Twitter storms make all leaders uneasy. The heads of government in most nations prefer a certain amount of predictability and decorum from other heads of state.
“To have one of the most powerful people in the room being someone who is willing to send out explosive and controversial statements through social media, including nasty personal attacks or an edited video of him physically assaulting the media, does not make others….feel very confident about how he will handle deliberations with them.”
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“TWITTER RULES” MEAN NOTHING TO TRUMP–OR TWITTER: PART TWO (END)
In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2020 at 12:05 amOn December 12, 2017, President Donald Trump used Twitter to attack New York United States Senator Kirsten Gillibrand.
Gillibrand was among six Democratic Senators who called for Trump’s resignation after sexual harassment allegations forced three Republican and Democratic members of Congress to resign.
Trump tweeted: “Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!”
Kirsten Gillibrand
“I see it as a sexist smear. I mean that’s what it is,” Gillibrand replied in a press conference. “It’s part of the President’s efforts of name calling and it’s not going to silence me, it’s not going to silence me. It’s intended to silence me.”
So how does this behavior apply to “The Twitter Rules”?
Abuse/harassment: You may not engage in the targeted harassment of someone, or incite other people to do so. This includes wishing or hoping that someone experiences physical harm.
On February 17, 2017, Trump tweeted: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!”
On July 2, 2017, Trump tweeted a video showing him punching a man with the CNN logo superimposed on his head during a WWE wrestling match.
And on August 15, 2017, the President retweeted a cartoon photo of a “Trump Train” running over a CNN reporter.
Yet Twitter’s Terms of Service state:
Violence: You may not threaten violence against an individual or a group of people. We also prohibit the glorification of violence.
In May, 2020, Trump tweeted six times about a decades-old conspiracy theory about MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. Scarborough has been highly critical of Trump’s actions as President—such as his pushing “scam solutions” to Coronavirus instead of relying on scientific experts.
Trump’s smears about Scarborough center on the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, who worked in his Florida office when he served in Congress. Scarborough’s opponents and a bevy of internet trolls have tried to blame him for her death, even though he was in Washington at the time.
Trump tweeted that Comcast—which owns MSNBC—“should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough.” Since then, he has essentially accused Scarborough of murder.
On May 21, Timothy Klausutis, Lori’s widowed husband, wrote Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s CEO, asking him to delete Trump’s tweets,
Jack Dorsey
“Nearly 19 years ago, my wife, who had an undiagnosed heart condition, fell and hit her head on her desk at work. She was found dead the next morning,” wrote Klausutis. “Her passing is the single most painful thing that I have ever had to deal with in my 52 years and continues to haunt her parents and sister.
“The President’s tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered—without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy)—is a violation of Twitter’s community rules and terms of service.”
Twitter has refused to delete the tweets.
CNN Business asked Twitter if Trump’s “cold case” tweets violated its rules and if any action would be taken. Twitter refused to comment.
So how do Twitter’s top executives justify allowing these repeated violations of “Twitter Rules”?
On September 25, 2018, the company tweeted:
“We hold all accounts to the same Rules, and consider a number of factors when assessing whether Tweets violate our Rules.
“Among the considerations is ‘newsworthiness’ and whether a Tweet is of public interest. This has long been internal policy and we’ll soon update our public-facing rules to reflect it. We need to do better on this, and will.”
Twitter has never acknowledged publicly that Trump has violated any of its guidelines. It rarely even acknowledges Trump’s tweets.
So what gives?
Money.
Trump’s apologists have fiercely defended his tweetstorms, claiming they allow him to bypass the media and “communicate directly with the American people.”
One of those apologists is Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who said: “I believe it’s really important to have these conversations out in the open, rather than have them behind closed doors.”
In April, 2017, Twitter announced that it had added 9,000,000 new users, its largest quarterly jump in two years.
“We believe Twitter is the best at showing you what’s happening in the world and what’s being talked about,” said Anthony Noto, Twitter’s chief financial officer.
“Having political leaders of the world as well as news agencies participating and driving that is an important element to reinforcing what we’re the best at.”
In short: Trump is good at attracting more Twitter users. and if the company needs to overlook his blatant and repeated violations of its “Twitter Rules,” so be it.
Twitter has been so plagued by trolling that potential investors like the Walt Disney Company refused to taint their own reputations by partnering with it.
But high-ranking Twitter executives refuse to end their Faustian pact with the biggest Twitter troll of all.
And, as all devotees of the Faust legend know, there comes a time when the Devil wins the bargain.
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