Twitter on Wednesday unveiled a new policy prohibiting “violent speech” on its platform, though the rules appear very similar to guidelines against violent threats that the company had on its books before Elon Musk took it over.
Among the updates, Twitter expanded its policy to include a ban on “coded language,” which is often referred to as “dog whistles,” used to indirectly incite violence. It also added a rule that prohibits “threatening to damage civilian homes and shelters, or infrastructure that is essential to daily, civic, or business activities.”
The additions come as San Francisco-based Twitter prepares to comply with new European Union rules that go into effect this fall. The new rules, called the Digital Services Act, require tech companies to better police their platforms for material that, for instance, promotes terrorism, child sexual abuse, hate speech and commercial scams.
Twitter’s new violent-speech policy states that “healthy conversations can’t thrive when violent speech is used to deliver a message. As a result, we have a zero tolerance policy towards violent speech in order to ensure the safety of our users and prevent the normalization of violent actions.”