Twitter hit by protests — @jack is #complicit
Calls for CEO of social media firm to be fired or resign grow after Trump’s ‘nuclear button’ tweet
Facing growing pressure and a planned protest, Twitter said Wednesday that President Donald Trump did not violate its terms of service when he once again used Twitter to escalate the rhetoric about nuclear arms.
In response to North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s New Year address, in which he said he had
“a nuclear button” on his desk and threatened to use it against the United States, Trump said Tuesday night that his “nuclear button” is “much bigger” and “more powerful.”
Since Trump rode Twitter all the way to the presidency, the social media company has fielded calls to strip Trump of his socialmedia megaphone. Now there are calls for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey — who has characterized Trump’s use of the platform as “fascinat- ing” and “complicated” — to step down or be fired if the company doesn’t ban Trump, including from a local group of Bay Area protesters.
Trump’s veiled threat against North Korea is nothing new. In September, he tweeted: “Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won’t be around much longer!”
Twitter said then that it considered the president’s tweet “newsworthy.”
This time, the company pointed to rules that state users “may not make specific threats of violence or wish for the serious physical harm, death, or disease
of an individual or group of people.”
But according to Twitter’s ever-evolving and sometimes seemingly contradictory rules, Trump’s threat was too vague.
“Please note that wishing or hoping that someone experiences serious physical harm, making vague threats, or threatening less serious forms of physical harm would not fall under (the violent threats policy),” Twitter’s rules state. “Instead, we may review and take action against that content under our abusive behavior and hateful conduct policies.”
Protesters are calling for action. Resistance SF is circulating
a photo of “@jack is #complicit” projected on the side of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters, saying the company is helping to “amplify a madman.” The group, which said some of its members have theater and technology backgrounds, was planning a protest at Twitter headquarters Wednesday night.
“Jack Dorsey, CEO of Twitter and Square, has enabled @realDonaldTrump from his first dog whistles in the birther movement to his latest nuclear pissing contest,” the group said on its Facebook event page, which as of early Wednesday afternoon showed that
about 40 people planned to attend and that more than 150 were interested.
“As long as he is CEO of Twitter and Square, they cannot be considered moral tech companies, and the board of directors of both should do the right thing and insist that either Trump or Jack must go,” the group, which was formed last year during the protests against Trump’s Muslim-majority-country travel ban, said in a statement Wednesday.
A Twitter spokeswoman said the company would have no comment on the calls for Dorsey’s resignation.
The outcry seems to be
more widespread online. Twitter users are reporting Trump’s “nuclear button tweet” to the company.
Educator Dani Bostick asked whether it’s against Twitter’s terms of service “to provoke nuclear war with North Korea.” She added: “Don’t you guys have a button that’s even bigger than Donald Trump’s that you can use to shut this down?”
When CNN’s “Reliable Sources” host Brian Stelter addressed the issue Tuesday, Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino Jr., reacted on Twitter.
“While you would love nothing more than to see a Twitter ToS Violation” for the president, “you and all of your liberal friends have NOTHING,” Scavino tweeted to Stelter.
In the wake of the president’s latest nuclear tweet, a couple of Democratic lawmakers are pushing a bill that would require Congress to authorize a nuclear strike.
“Freaked out by Trump’s tweet threatening nuclear war with #NorthKorea?” tweeted Rep. Ted Lieu, DLos Angeles. “Support HR 669 / S 200 by Senator @ EdMarkey and me.”