Twitter announced Monday that it would start placing a warning sign before pictures showing Nazi swastikas or other hate items appearing on the feed and if deemed necessary it would ban their use in profile photos. Following a mass rally of white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, which culminated in a car-ramming attack, a number of their accounts were removed from Twitter in August 2017.
Twitter used to steer clear of “battles” among users until some women and minorities became deprived of a say on the social media network due to online sexual harassment and bullying. The company said that it would shut down accounts promoting violence, and cited an example of swastika as a hateful image, yet specifying it would try to give warnings for all items or symbols “historically associated with hate groups” or “depicting people as less than human.”
READ MORE: Freedom of Expression 'on Inexorable Decline' on Twitter — Assange
Tweets can still include graphic violence or hateful imagery, although users will have to click through a warning to view them, so that they are aware that they will see sensitive media.
Earlier this year, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks’ founder, slammed Twitter’s new policy on freedom of expression, saying that it had become increasingly restrictive.
