As ex-president, Trump will no longer enjoy immunity from social media rules

Mr Trump posts masked by warnings or amended with labels could qualify to be deleted instead. 图片:路透社

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) - When US President 唐纳德·特朗普 departs the White House, he also leaves behind any immunity he might have from social media rules.

Efforts by 推特 and 脸谱网 to balance letting political leaders speak to the people unfettered with enforcing rules about hateful and misleading posts have afforded Mr Trump leeway not given to regular users.

But any special treatment that Mr Trump has enjoyed ends with his presidency.

"推特's approach to world leaders, candidates and public officials is based on the principle that people should be able to choose to see what their leaders are saying with clear context," a spokesman for Mr Trump's go-to messaging platform told AFP.

"This policy framework applies to current world leaders and candidates for office, and not private citizens when they no longer hold these positions."

So, Mr Trump posts masked by warnings or amended with labels could qualify to be deleted instead.

"I assume that the argument around not completely removing content from world leaders is because what they say is important for us to know," said Professor Casey Fiesler of the University of Colorado, 博尔德.

"I don't know that I would describe that as leniency. But it's certainly a different way that their policy is applied."

推特 says accounts of world leaders are not completely above its removal policies, particularly when it comes to promoting terrorism, threats of violence or publicly posting personal information about people such as where they live.

The fact that Mr Trump has relentlessly attempted to undermine the integrity of the election and falsely claim victory is important for US citizens to know, 学者的理由, while acknowledging that his words in themselves represent a threat to democracy.

"You have to weigh those two things," Prof Fiesler said. "Arguably, 推特 could have removed his account long ago."

不受欢迎的人?

脸谱网 has been under pressure to clamp down on political misinformation since failing to stop foreign influence campaigns in the 2016 US election - while at the same time remaining an open platform for debate.

The social network took a different path from 推特, which early this year decided to label comments by Mr Trump as misleading and in another case to limit the reach of the president's comments for violating the platform's policy on promoting violence.

脸谱网 chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has consistently resisted setting limits on Trump rhetoric, saying that "the best way to hold politicians accountable is through voting, and I believe we should trust voters to make judgments for themselves".

脸谱网 tightened its rules for the fiercely contentious election, banning last-minute political ads and misleading information about voting, and adding information labels to premature claims of victory.

Given the vitriol common in Trump posts, once he loses his protected status in social media as president, he could wind up persona non grata, 加州大学理性分校, 加州大学伯克利分校, information school professor Hany Farid.

推特 said on Friday it had banned an account created by former Trump adviser Steve Bannon that called for the execution of federal officials.

The @WarRoomPandemic account was "permanently suspended for violating the 推特 Rules, specifically our policy on the glorification of violence", a statement from the social media platform said.

在账号被封之前, it featured a call by Mr Bannon to remove the heads of FBI director Christopher Wray and top government pandemic expert Anthony Fauci.

If an ex-president Trump calls for violence in 脸谱网 or 推特 posts, 他也应该被终身禁赛, 法里德教授认为.

"推特 and 脸谱网 and YouTube and all the other platforms have to take that seriously,法里德教授说.

"For citizen Trump, they could follow the rules."

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