Twitter, more than ever at the heart of the American presidential campaign, was heavily criticized this weekend for the “inconsistent” application of its own rules of moderation in the event of messages wishing the death of someone – for example that of Donald Trump, hospitalized Friday.
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“Tweets wishing or hoping for death, serious injury or fatal illness against” anyone “are not allowed and will be withdrawn,” the social network’s communication service said in a tweet on Friday.
A booster shot that seemed necessary after the immense wave of reactions to the announcement of the president’s positive test for COVID-19 (made on Twitter), some of which wished the death of the head of state, openly or to covered words.
But this statement has challenged other personalities, who have suffered threats on the platform in recent years.
“You mean you could have done that all this time?”, Responded the very media elected Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Twitter.
“What about all the death threats and calls to annihilate me? !! You didn’t hear the same story from @Twitter when Andrew Anglin and his neo-Nazi and white supremacist trolls, the Daily Stormers, threatened me en masse, relentlessly … and there are plenty of other examples “, For his part insurgent Erin Schrode.
A 2016 candidate for Congress in California, this young woman suffered, at the time and even after her defeat, a torrent of insulting and violent comments online, including on Twitter.
“Women and candidates from ethnic minorities are particularly at risk of being systematically targeted with abusive content,” recalls a report by the ISD think tank published on Monday, entitled “Public Figures, Public Rage”.
“We hear voices that feel that we have applied certain policies inconsistently. We agree that we need to do better and we are working together internally to do so, ”tweeted Twitter Safety, the company’s network security account on Saturday.
“Necessary,” responded Erin Schrode.