Twitter removes ‘paid for’ tweet backing FGM

TWITTER has been forced to remove a “paid for” tweet which promoted female genital mutilation.

A Muslim group, Dawoodi Bohra Women for Religious Freedom, posted a tweet last week justifying “khafz”, a term for female circumcision, on young girls.

The tweet featured a video of Arwa Sohangpurwala, a group member, saying: “My daughters have also undergone khafz, and they’re growing up as perfectly as other children of their age. As a mother, I can never do anything to harm them.”

But because the group paid for the tweet to be “promoted”, it showed up on the timelines of users who didn’t even follow the poster’s account and was viewed more than 30,000 times.

A Twitter spokesman said: “This was a promoted tweet and was removed for violation of our policies.”