‘WORLD LEADER’ TRUMP WON’T BE BANNED, SAYS TWITTER

LONDON: Just days after Donald Trump’s Twitter taunting of Kim Jong-un over nuclear war reignited calls for the company to ban the president from its platform, the social media company obliquely addressed the controversy in a statement defending its decision not to censor “world leaders”.

“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial Tweets, would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” the company wrote in a blog published on Friday. “It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”

The statement does not name Trump or state any new policy, offering a defence of the firm’s current practice , which takes into account whether a tweet that might otherwise violate the company’s rules is “newsworthy” or in the “public interest”.

“We review Tweets by leaders within the political context that defines them, and enforce our rules accordingly,” the company wrote. “We work hard to remain unbiased with the public interest in mind.”

Many Trump critics have called for the president to be banned from the website – both because his tweets can often be construed as violating the platform’s rules and out of fear that his outbursts could actually spark a war.

In November, Trump’s personal account was briefly deactivated . The company attributed the outage to the actions of a contractor on his final day of work.