San Francisco, December 5, : Twitter mistakenly suspended several accounts belonging to anti-extremists researchers, after extremist groups began exploiting its private media policy.The media reported.The new rules were announced the day after Parag Agrawal, an Indian-origin, was appointed as Twitter CEO by Jack Dorsey.
According to The Washington Post, extremist groups started using Twitter’s new system within a few hours of its debut.
Telegram and Gab were used by them to organize against anti-extremist accounts, which expose and keep track white supremacists at hate rally rallies.
Extremists had their accounts suspended and their personal photos taken.
Twitter launched an internal investigation into the matter and made the necessary corrections.
Far-right activists are now trying to remove photos of hate rallies from Twitter because of Twitter’s new policy that allows people to request the takedown of photos and videos.
According to the micro-blogging platform, the private media policy was created to “curb misuse of media to harass and intimate, and reveal the identities private individuals which disproportionately impacts women, activists, dissidents and members of minorities.”
However, it is not clear how it intends to clarify the private media policy further.
According to The Post, researchers were informed that their accounts were suspended for violating the platform’s rules “against publishing media of an individual coming from a country with a recognized right to privacy law.”
“URGENT”: As we feared @TwitterSafety has already locked and suspended extremism researcher accounts under its new “Private Media Policy,” tweeted Chad Loder, a Los Angeles-based activist/researcher.
Twitter acknowledged that it had been subject to “a significant amount” of wrongful reporting, leading to “a dozen erroneous suspensions.”
na/dpb #Twitters #private
