What is not allowed

Twitter claims to have a rule against wishing death on people. Cue hollow laughter.

Twitter has said that tweets wishing for Donald Trump’s death in the wake of the president’s diagnosis with Covid-19 violate its policies and could result in suspension.

But what about all those tweets wishing for JK Rowling’s death?

“Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against anyone are not allowed and will need to be removed,” the company said in a tweet. A spokesman told the Guardian this policy has been in place since April and applies to all users, not just Trump.

That last sentence is confused: they mean the rule applies to all targets, not just Trump. It’s a rule for all users, applied to all targets. Except of course that it isn’t.

The announcement came as a surprise to many Twitter users, especially people in marginalized communities who say they frequently experience abuse on the platform. Evan Greer said that as a trans woman and the primary spokesperson for the digital rights organization Fight For the Future, she receives death threats on a “weekly, sometimes daily basis”.

Thanks Guardian. Anything about actual women? Anything at all? (Spoiler: no.)

Many people on Twitter described the policy as hypocritical, and pointed out that some users regularly receive death threats with little response from Twitter.

Women, especially.

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