Twitter has unveiled its updated policy on how it defines harassment and threats, and its policy toward adult content.
Twitter also said it will now send an email explaining which policy has been violated when it suspends an account – just hours after a disgruntled employee deavtivated Donald Trump’s account on his last day.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey promised more transparency and aggressive policies last month after the firm came under fire after actress Rose McGowan’s account was temporarily blocked for violating Twitter polices.
Twitter also said it will now send an email explaining which policy has been violated when it suspends an account following a backlash after it suspended actress Rose McGowan.
Twitter later said the action was taken because she posted someone’s phone number – a policy violation, despite many users thinking t was for her comments on Harvey Weinstein.
‘Online behavior continues to evolve and change, and at Twitter, we have to ensure those changes are reflected in our rules in a way that’s easy to adhere to and understand,’ the social network said.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey promised more transparency and aggressive policies last month after the firm came under fire after actress Rose McGowan’s account was temporarily blocked for violating Twitter polices.
‘While the fundamentals of our policies and our approach have not changed, this updated version presents our rules with more details and examples.’
The firm said it was ‘making it clear that context — including if the behavior is targeted, if a report has been filed and by whom, and if the Tweet itself is newsworthy and in the legitimate public interest — is crucial when evaluating abusive behavior and determining appropriate enforcement actions.’
The policy changes are specifically aimed at protecting women who unknowingly or unwillingly have nude pictures of themselves distributed online or were subject to unwanted sexual advances.
They also aim to shield groups subject to hateful imagery, symbols and threats of violence.
It comes just hours after an embarrassing gaffe when an employee at Twitter who was leaving their customer service job at the company deliberately deleted the profile of the most powerful man on the planet in a mischievous act on their last day of work.
President Donald Trump’s Twitter account disappeared for 11 minutes on Thursday evening after the rogue employee at the social networking company removed the entire profile.
The sabotage took place shortly before 7 p.m. on Thursday when social media reports surfaced that the president’s personal account @realdonaldtrump was unavailable, providing the error message that the user ‘does not exist.’
The President’s Twitter account vanished for a short time on Thursday evening
After a brief investigation Twitter owned up and took responsibility for the outage.
In a tweeted statement, the company said Trump’s account was ‘inadvertently deactivated due to human error’ by one of its employees.
‘We are continuing to investigate and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again,’ the statement continued.
But in a second statement, Twitter confirmed it was an employee on their last day.
‘Through our investigation we have learned that this was done by a Twitter customer support employee who did this on the employee’s last day. We are conducting a full internal review.’
Just before 7 p.m. EDT, visitors to the 45th President’s Twitter profile were greeted with both a frustrating and confusing message: ‘Sorry, that page doesn’t exist! You can search Twitter using the search box below or return to the homepage.’
Twitter users were confused as to what could have caused the brief account shutdown with some correctly speculating it was deleted by Twitter and others wondering if the President did it himself. Others simply rejoiced:
Just before 7am, the president reacted to the news that his Twitter account had temporarily been suspended
‘Donald Trump doesn’t exist according to Twitter,’ wrote one, ‘I was there for the great vanishing of Donald Trump’s Twitter account,’ chimed another.
‘Feel like I need to re-evaluate my life choices after reflecting on my reaction to Trump’s Twitter,’ joked one correspondant.
‘The greatest trick Donald Trump’s twitter account ever pulled was making us all hope that it didn’t exist’ tweeted one.
Memes and gifs quickly sprung up praising the employees mischievous act on their last day
A short time later, the account page reappeared and seemed to be functioning as normal. His government account remained active throughout.
About half an hour earlier, Mr Trump had tweeted a video about his nomination of Jerome Powell to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Hundreds of Twitter users posted witty comments and memes on the social network enjoying the brief respite from the President’s feed.
Twitter explained two hours later that it was one of its own employees that caused the outage and followed up their initial tweet explaining it was an employee on their last day
‘@RealDonaldTrump finally became president… for those brief few minutes when his personal Twitter account was down,’ joked one user.
‘We’ll all remember where we were during the 10 minutes of peace while Donald Trump’s Twitter account was down,’ said another.
‘If Trump’s Twitter account did in fact get deleted, that would be the first bit of good news we’ve gotten in a while,’ another quipped.
The President’s account, which has almost 42 million followers has proved to be a vital tool in the way Mr Trump communicates to the outside work, it being the main channel of communication he uses to disseminate statements and attack his critics.
Trump has credited the social platform for helping him win the White House, but some close to the president reportedly worry that his prolific and often controversial tweeting could have dire consequences.
Mr Trump has been active on Twitter since March 2009 when he sent his very first tweet promoting an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman.
Since that time, he has tweeted more than 36,000 times – an average of 12 times a day.
The White House had no immediate comment on the profile’s brief disappearance.