Twitter considers flagging offending tweets from high-ranking individuals

Twitter is investigating how it can flag tweets that go against the social network’s rules, but not be removed because they are in the public interest. These are tweets posted by politicians or dignitaries, for example.

By placing an annotation on such tweets, Twitter wants to make it clear to people that the message is actually not acceptable, but will remain because of its news value. Twitter does not yet know how it will shape this, but says it wants to give context with the label.

It is not clear if and when the functionality will come. Vijaya Gadde, the top woman responsible for policy at Twitter, spoke about annotating tweets at an event by the American newspaper The Washington Post.

In the past, Twitter has deliberately left tweets that violate rules online. That happened, for example, in late 2017 when US President Donald Trump retweeted videos of the leader of the British party Britain First, which are intended to incite Christian audiences against Muslims.