New prohibitions on using coded language to indirectly incite violence, as well as a ban on wishing harm on others and making direct threats against physical infrastructure, are among the new prohibitions added to Twitter's policy on violent speech, which expands restrictions on some types of threats made on its platform.
“Healthy conversations can’t thrive when violent speech is used to deliver a message,” the new policy reads. “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.”
In addition to clearly prohibiting facilitation of war crimes, genocide, and crimes against humanity, the new policy also forbids the use of "dog whistles" in speech to avoid discovery and punishment.
Users are also prohibited from wishing for others to get sick or die, experience terrible events, or experience "other physically detrimental outcomes" under the new policy. And the existing provisions barring violent threats add a new line banning threats “to damage civilian homes and shelters, or infrastructure that is essential to daily, civic, or business activities.”
The policy against infrastructure threats is implemented in the midst of an increase in actual attacks on the US power system that have been connected to homegrown terrorism. Inquiries from CNN regarding whether the policy was in response to the violence were not immediately answered by Twitter, which recently let go a large portion of its communications team.
In its current form, Twitter's new policy may make it harder than before to interpret the rules objectively. It also occurs at a time when Twitter has fewer employees to investigate suspected infractions as a result of waves of layoffs implemented by its new owner, Elon Musk.
As before, Twitter has the authority to instantly suspend any accounts that violate the policy for good, as well as to impose interim limits for less serious offenses.
