San Francisco: Twitter said it allowed anti-Muslim videos that were retweeted by President Donald Trump because they didn't break rules on forbidden content, backtracking from its earlier rationale that the posts were newsworthy.

On Thursday, a Twitter spokesperson said "there may be the rare occasion when we allow controversial content or behaviour which may otherwise violate our rules to remain on our service because we believe there is a legitimate public interest in its availability."

President Donald Trump Credit:AP

The response was criticsed by people who said Trump's retweets violated Twitter policies since the video incited violence. On Friday, Twitter backtracked on its initial explanation.

"We mistakenly pointed to the wrong reason we didn't take action on the videos from earlier this week," Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey posted Friday. "We're still looking critically at all of our current policies, and appreciate all the feedback."