Twitter said on Friday that it will delete tweets hoping for the death of President Trump.
The social media platform has previously expressed that any post “that wishes, hopes or expresses a desire for death, serious bodily harm or fatal disease against an individual” is not permissible on its site.
The policy would apply to posts about the president, the company told Motherboard on Friday. Twitter said that in some cases, users may even have their accounts suspended for publishing content that violates this rule.
When asked for more specifics about circumstances under which accounts would be suspended, Twitter referred the Washington Examiner to a page on its website that states, “When determining the penalty for violating this policy, we consider a number of factors including, but not limited to, the severity of the violation and an individual’s previous record of rule violations.”
Early on Friday morning, news spread that Trump had tested positive for COVID-19. While most of the responses to the president’s illness have been supportive, some notable ones haven’t been.
Ex-Obama staffer Zara Rahim tweeted, “It’s been against my moral identity to tweet this for the past four years, but, I hope he dies.”
“There is a God,” tweeted ESPN’s Marly Rivera tweeted after word of his diagnosis spread.
Both of those tweets have since been deleted.
Anthony Leonardi contributed to this report.
