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A top Twitter executive has refused to rule out suspending Donald Trump’s account if the US president continued posting incendiary messages such as those about the George Floyd protests.
Trump has relied on Twitter to get out his message without submitting himself to questions from reporters. His 81.7 million followers have made the @realDonaldTrump account one of Twitter’s 10 most popular. But the US leader has been at war with the social media platform he uses daily since it took the unprecedented decision to fact-check two of his tweets about postal ballots last month.
Twitter followed that up Friday by covering up a message from Trump warning protesters outraged by unarmed black man Floyd’s death at police hands that “when the looting starts, the shooting starts”. A message above that tweet warned that it “violated Twitter Rules about glorifying violence”. Viewers had to click on the message to see Trump’s original posting.
Twitter public policy strategy director Nick Pickles told a UK parliamentary hearing Thursday that the platform had decided to put Trump’s tweets to the same review process as it has for all other verified public figures.
