Accounts of world leaders have special status: Twitter

“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” Twitter said in a post on a corporate blog.

Twitter had already said in September that ‘newsworthiness’ and whether a tweet is ‘of public interest’ are among the factors it considers before removing an account or a tweet. The debate over Trump’s tweeting, though, raged anew after Trump said on Tuesday that he had a ‘much bigger’ and ‘more powerful’ nuclear button than North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. 

Critics said that tweet and Trump’s continued presence on the network endanger the world and violate Twitter’s ban on threats of violence. Some users protested at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Wednesday. 

The company said that it does review tweets by world leaders and enforces its rules accordingly, leaving open the possibility that it could take down some material posted by them. “No one person’s account drives Twitter’s growth, or influences these decisions,” the company added. “We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind.” 

“If I tweeted half of what Trump has since he entered office, I’d be permanently banned from this platform,” a Twitter user wrote.