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Threatening violence is against Twitter's rules and yet world leaders have threatened war on Twitter. Those tweets deserve to stay up because they have public
by slg 7y ago
Threatening violence is against Twitter's rules and yet world leaders have threatened war on Twitter. Those tweets deserve to stay up because they have public value, but Twitter needs some concrete policy on why a world leader saying they will "obliterate Iran" is different than a random person saying they will assault another random person. I am not sure this policy is a good answer to that, but they needed to do something.
- djrogers 7y ago> a world leader saying they will "obliterate Iran" It's also worth noting that saying they would "obliterate Iran" under a specific set of circumstances is completely different from saying they will "obliterate Iran". One is an (admittedly blunt) form of diplomatic and political threat, the other is a statement deliberately taken out of context to make someone look worse than they already do.
- slg 7y agoI disagree. One of the primary aspects of many threats is defining the specific criteria that would lead to violence. The point of a threat is usually not to actually inflict the violence but instead to use that possibility of violence as a motivation for changing behavior. It is roughly equivalent to preemptive terrorism. I therefore don't see how putting qualifications on the threat of violence should be enough to circumvent the rules. I would still expect to get in trouble for saying "I will kill you if you ever state that political opinion again" even though the threatened party could easily avoid any fear of violence by simply refraining from stating that opinion.