Elon Musk started his long march towards the Twitter headquarters with his bid to take over the social media site in April, with his vision for absolute free speech. Over the months, as Musk cited bots as an excuse to take a U-turn on the deal, there was also speculation if he would allow former US President Donald Trump to come back to the platform. Amidst major changes to the workforce, Musk has laid out Twitter rules through his tweet, while further modifications will come as the platform evolves.
Casteism, abuse and violence not tolerated
For starters, Twitter won’t exactly be a free for all since threatening violenc or even glorifying it will still be out of bounds for users, along with promotion of violent extremist. Bots and trolls have been behind most of the abuse and harassment directed at users, largely women and vulnerable groups, and will lead to action. Hate based on caste, sexual orientation, and ethnicity, apart from nationality, religion and gender identity won’t be tolerated on Twitter, which means homophobia, transphobia, casteism and communalism is banned.
Religious extremists to be shut out
People who are known to perpetrate violence, which includes religious extremists, terrorists and similar actors will be barred from tweeting, and manifestos drated by them will also be removed. Media which depicts sexual violence or promotes graphic violence will also be filtered out under Musk’s twitter rules, and suicide as well as self harm can’t be encouraged.
Doxxing violates privacy rules
Threatening to publicly share or actually sharing phone numbers, address and other personal details of a person is prohibited under privacy protection rules, which means doxxing will be tackled. Intimate images or nudes of any individual can’t be shared on Twitter without their permission.
No political interference
Reiterating Musk’s commitments against bots, users are barred from indulging in behaviour that disrupt’s another person’s experience on the site. As a continuation of Dorsey’s policies, the platform can’t be used for manipulating voters or interfering in elections. After Musk was recently hit by a parody account tweeting Bhojpuri lyrics, the platform also promises action against impersonation.
After the new boss advocated developing Twitter as a source of authentic information, Twitter has also taken a strict stance on intellectual property protection.
