Twitter has not ruled out banning President-elect Donald Trump from Twitter after his recent angry tweets.
The President-elect's recent tweets attacked an Indianapolis factory worker called Chuck Jones. Soon after, Mr. Chuck Jones received a run of abusive calls, the Washington Post reported, apparently spurred on by the tweet.That appears to potentially be in contravention of Twitter's rules on inciting abuse or harassment, and echoes situations where Twitter has opted to ban people for life.
"The company has repeatedly stated that its rules Apply to All Accounts; and said that it will not comment on specific users, it has repeated that statement in the wake of the new tweets," as reported by Motherboard.
But those rules tell users that they "may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others". It makes clear that it will consider a range of factors when deciding whether to lock or ban someone's account including whether the reported account is being "one-sided or includes threats", or is "inciting others to harass another account".
Yesterday, President-elect Donald Trump took offense when Chuck Jones, the head of the "Steelworkers Union Local" that represents the Indiana Carrier plants where Trump negotiated for some 800 jobs to keep from moving to Mexico, criticized him publicly. Jones had said that Donald Trump lied when he claimed to have saved 1,100 jobs there.
"Chuck Jones, who is President of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder companies flee country!" as tweeted by Presiden-elect Donald Trump. Soon after it was posted, Mr. Chuck Jones received calls asking what kind of car he drives and another one that said that "We're coming for you."
The tweet and the abuse that followed it are similar to the behavior that led to Breitbart writer Milo Yiannopoulos being banned from Twitter earlier this year. He was permanently banned from having an account on the site because he sent public messages harassing Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones that led many other users of the site to attack her too.