With less than two months left of President Donald Trump‘s time in office remaining, his preferred social media platform Twitter has updated its rules relating to hateful conduct.
Our rules continually evolve to help keep people safe. Today, we’re expanding our hateful conduct policy to address language that dehumanizes people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin.
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) December 2, 2020
The company announced the update in a tweet from its Twitter Safety account. The update appears to prioritize dehumanizing language about large groups of people.
“Our rules continually evolve to help keep people safe. Today, we’re expanding our hateful conduct policy to address language that dehumanizes people on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin,” the tweet said.
Examples of tweets that violate the new policy include messages like, “There are too many [national origin/race/ethnicity] maggots in our country, and they need to leave” or “People with [Disease] are rats that contaminate everyone around them.
In the blog post, which was first posted in July 2019, the company said that it took public feedback, expert opinions, and internal ideas into consideration when discussing hateful conduct.
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP/Getty
