Welcome to "The Outwrite Podcast". This article is published on www.theoutwrite.com by Varun Singh Rajput.

Twitter has been accused of double standards as soon as the company announced a policy to remove tweets with wishing death, or any fatal disease against anyone. It included tweets who wished that President Donald Trump doesn’t recover from COVID-19 or some even wished death.

Twitter clearly stated, ” Tweets that wish or hope for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against anyone are not allowed and will need to be removed. This does not automatically mean suspension.”

None of us would be in favour of such tweets for anyone, then the question is: Why Twitter faces backlash over such ban.

Some of the users have shown disappointment claiming that Twitter failed to protect women and many other minorities who faced such death wishes and threats in past. The platform didn’t take any strict action at that point in time.

Twitter Rules have this policy in detailed under Abusive Behavior, which says:

“Wishing or hoping serious harm on a person or group of people"

We do not tolerate content that wishes, hopes or expresses a desire for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against an individual or group of people. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Hoping that someone dies as a result of a serious disease e.g., “I hope you get cancer and die.”
• Wishing for someone to fall victim to a serious accident e.g., “I wish that you would get run over by a car next time you run your mouth.”
• Saying that a group of individuals deserves serious physical injury e.g., “If this group of protesters don’t shut up, they deserve to be shot.”

Aunty Malorie Blackman, the author of Noughts & Crosses series, tweeted: ” Weeks of death threats

Weeks of death threats and serious threats against my family when I was children’s laureate resulted in Twitter doing bugger all about it.

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