Mumbai: The microblogging platform Twitter updated its existing private information policy and expanded its scope to include “private media.”
Under Twitter’s existing policy, publishing other people’s private information, such as phone numbers, addresses, and IDs, is already not allowed on Twitter. This includes threatening to expose private information or incentivizing others to do so.
While their existing policies and Twitter Rules cover explicit instances of abusive behaviour, the new update will allow Twitter to take action on media that is shared without any explicit abusive content, provided it’s posted without the consent of the person depicted. This is a part of our ongoing work to align our safety policies with human rights standards, and it was enforced globally starting from November 30.
The following behaviours are also not permitted:
- threatening to publicly expose someone’s private information;
- sharing information that would enable individuals to hack or gain access to someone’s private information without their consent., sharing sign-in credentials for online banking services;
- asking for or offering a bounty or financial reward in exchange for posting someone’s private information;
- asking for a bounty or financial reward in exchange for not posting someone’s private information, sometimes referred to as blackmail.
- NEW: media of private individuals without the permission of the person(s) depicted.
“This policy does not apply to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse,“ the blog post by Twitter read.
The blog post further read that if the purpose of the dissemination of private images of public figures or individuals who are part of public conversations is to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence them, we may remove the content in line with our policy against abusive behaviour. Similarly, private nude images of public individuals will continue to be actioned under our non-consensual nudity policy.
“We recognize that there are instances where account holders may share images or videos of private individuals to help someone involved in a crisis, such as in the aftermath of a violent event, or as part of a newsworthy event due to public interest value, and this might outweigh the safety risks to a person,” stated the blog post.
It further added, “We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service. For instance, we would take into consideration whether the image is publicly available and/or is being covered by mainstream/traditional media (newspapers, TV channels, online news sites), or if a particular image and the accompanying tweet text adds value to the public discourse, is being shared in the public interest, or is relevant to the community.”
