Twitter has been in the middle of a partisan fight over its decision-making, with conservatives charging that the company intentionally discriminates against Republicans and others on the right. | Richard Drew/AP Photo Technology Twitter clamps down on abusive speech, in seeming shot at Trump

Twitter said on Thursday it will begin labeling and demoting tweets from world leaders that violate its rules — an action that appears aimed at President Donald Trump's often incendiary attacks.

Twitter has long said that it leaves up offensive tweets from government officials because removing them would limit the public's ability to understand their leaders. But the company has frequently been criticized for allowing tweets posted by Trump that arguably violate the site's rules against, among other things, dehumanization, degradation and the glorification of violence.


Trump has, for example, used Twitter to call former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman "that dog," share a gif showing him hitting Democratic rival Hillary Clinton with a golf ball and threaten nuclear war on North Korea by saying, "I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!"

Under the new policy on so-called public interest tweets, Twitter will consider adding a notice about why rule-violating tweets are allowed to remain up. The company shared an example of such a label that reads, "The Twitter Rules about abusive behavior apply to this Tweet. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the Tweet to remain available."

Twitter has been in the middle of a partisan fight over its decision-making, with conservatives, including Trump, charging that the company intentionally discriminates against Republicans and others on the right — a charge Twitter has denied.

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The president in a Fox interview on Wednesday swiped at Twitter, claiming without evidence that "they make it very hard” for people to follow his personal account and for him to “get out the message.”

"What they did to me on Twitter’s incredible. I have millions and millions of followers, but I will tell you they make it very hard for people to join me on Twitter," he said. "If I announced tomorrow that I’m going to become a nice liberal Democrat, I would pick up five times more followers."

Twitter said that rule-breaking public interest tweets will not be "elevated" on the service, such as appearing in some search results — a move likely to fuel charges of "shadowbanning," or the idea that social media companies discriminate against conservatives by subtly making their tweets and accounts more difficult to find.

In an interview for an upcoming episode of POLITICO's "Global Translations" podcast, Twitter global senior strategist Nick Pickles said that it is a priority of the company to add more transparency about its decision-making process.

Twitter had floated the possibility of the labeling move in late March.

In a POLITICO interview last summer with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Twitter legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde, Gadde suggested that even the company's increased tolerance for rule-violating tweets from world leaders, the policy "is not a blanket immunity for the president or anyone else."