Twitter bans ‘dehumanising’ tweets about age, disease and disability

Twitter has expanded its hate speech policy to include the ban of ‘ language that dehumanizes on the basis of age, disability or disease.’

The social media giant announced the changes recently but noted that any tweets shared will only be deleted and not result in a suspension of the account.

However, those who fail to comply moving forward, can expect to lose privileges on the site.

The crackdown comes at a time that the coronavirus is sweeping the globe and the presidential campaigning is underway – both have sparked malicious and racist remarks on the platform.

“We create our rules to keep people safe on Twitter, and they continuously evolve to reflect the realities of the world we operate within,” Twitter shared in Thursday’s announcement.

“Our primary focus is on addressing the risks of offline harm, and research shows that dehumanizing language increases that risk.”

Twitter first banned dehumanizing speech in September 2018, which it asked the public for feedback to get their perspective on the new policy.

In two weeks, the social media site received more than 8,000 responses from people located in more than 30 countries – much of which was centered on the policies being too broad.

It then decided to focus on specific types of speech against specific groups as against its rules, starting with religion and now age, disability, and disease.

And in 2019, the firm expanded rules against hateful conduct to include language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion.

“We also realize we don’t have all the answers, which is why we have developed a global working group of outside experts to help us think about how we should address dehumanizing speech around more complex categories like race, ethnicity and national origin,’ Twitter shared in the announcement.

The coronavirus, which originated in China, has sparked racism towards those living in the country – and these remarks have found to the platform.

Along with dehumanize remarks of the outbreak, Twitter is also seeing its share of tweets ridiculing the age of the US democrat candidates running for president.