Report: Twitter to Start Sanctioning Users for Their Offline Behavior

Twitter introduced account verification starting in 2009 and currently has some 187,000 ve
AFP

Twitter will start sanctioning users for their offline behavior starting Saturday, according to a report.

According to the Verge, “What’s new is that Twitter now plans to do at least some monitoring of verified users’ offline behavior as well, to determine whether it is consistent with its rules.”

“If it isn’t, users can lose their [verification] badges. And so a hypothetical verified user who tweeted nothing but pictures of kittens but organized Nazi rallies for a living could now retain his tweeting privileges, but lose his verification badge,” they explained.

In their own article, Mashable added that Twitter has “given users until December 18, 2017, when it will then begin enforcing the rule.”

“The month-long wait is due to regulations in the European Union that require companies to inform users of a new policy change 30 days prior to enforcement,” they claimed, adding that the “deadline also applies to using ‘hateful images or symbols’ in profile images or profile headers.”

“Twitter will also monitor for hate speech in usernames, display names, and profile bios,” Mashable concluded.

On Wednesday, several conservative users lost their verification badges, which were originally implemented on Twitter to show that an account was official.

Anti-Islam activist, author, and commentator Tommy Robinson, and commentator Laura Loomer both lost their verification badges, along with alt-right thought-leaders Richard B. Spencer, Jason Kessler, and James Allsup.

The deverifications came after a terms of service change on the platform, which declared users can now lose their verification badges for “promoting hate.”

Charlie Nash is a reporter for Breitbart Tech. You can follow him on Twitter @MrNashington and Gab @Nash, or like his page at Facebook.

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