Twitter: Trump not exempt from being banned

A Twitter official said Tuesday that President Trump does not have a “blanket exception” from a possible ban by the social media platform.

The company’s legal and policy chief, Vijaya Gadde, told Politico that while the company has often given Trump an exception for possible policy violations because of the newsworthiness of his tweets, there is “not a blanket exception for the president or anyone else.”

{mosads}The company has come under fire from Trump critics for not punishing the president for specific use of the platform. Trump often uses his account to launch personal attacks on political opponents, criticize the media and, on occasion, announce major policy or personnel decisions.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told Politico that his team considers “context” and “public interest” when evaluating tweets from Trump and others, echoing his past explanation for why the company has not punished the president.

“We have to balance it with the context that it’s in,” he said. “So my role is to ask questions and make sure we’re being impartial, and we’re upholding consistently our terms of service, including public interest.”

Twitter has defended its decision to not delete some of Trump’s tweets in the past, saying that the tweets are newsworthy. Last year, Trump used his Twitter to threaten North Korea, which some speculated could be considered a declaration of war and a violation of Twitter’s policy.

The company said in January that blocking world leaders from Twitter would “hide important information people should be able to see and debate.”

Dorsey is set to testify before two congressional committees this week amid a number of controversies over how the company handles political content.

Conservatives, including Trump, have accused the platform of, among other things, intentionally “shadow-banning” conservative voices. The company has acknowledged a glitch that muted some conservatives in search results, but said it also impacted some progressives and is being addressed.