Twitter Says Donald Trump’s ‘Racist’ Tweets Don’t Violate Its Hateful Conduct Policies

Twitter representatives said Tuesday that racist tweets sent by the president targeting four freshmen members of Congress do not constitute rule violations, according to Business Insider.

In a statement Tuesday, Twitter told Business Insider that Trump’s Sunday tweet, in which he suggested American-born congresswomen go back to their home countries, did not violate any of its policies.

As Business Insider noted, Trump’s tweet seemingly violates Twitter’s terms of service, despite Twitter’s Tuesday statement to the contrary.

Twitter’s terms of service forbid content that contains tropes about protected categories.

“We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category,” according to Twitter’s Hateful Conduct Policy.

Additionally, Twitter in June enacted a policy that allows the service to keep tweets from elected officials and leaders, like Trump, on the social network who violate its rules. It said it would place these tweets behind a warning that alerted users to their nature prior to showing the content of the message.

But as of press time, the warning message is not present on Trump’s tweet from Sunday, as the service doesn’t find it to violate its policies.

The company has had a history defending its decision to allow controversial tweets from the president to remain on the platform despite some calling for their removal. The San Fransisco company has said in the past that it allows Trump’s tweets that toe the line on its rules to remain on the site because of their news value as official statements from the president.

Twitter won’t hide Donald Trump’s racist tweets https://t.co/eQRn05OAAj pic.twitter.com/Lq9RFiKtoD

— The Verge (@verge) July 15, 2019

Trump’s tweet has generated significant backlash with condemnations coming from Democrats and some Republicans. Republican Sens. Rob Portman and Mitt Romney as well as Reps. Susan Brooks and Tom Cole are just some of the conservative members of Congress speaking out against Trump’s tweet, per CNN. Not all who condemned the tweets said they were racist.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, said he didn’t believe the statements to be racist and equated the outcry to “politics,” per The New York Post.

Trump’s right-hand woman special counselor Kellyanne Conway sparred with her husband, conservative lawyer George Conway, who on Monday penned an op-ed calling Trump a bigot, over the Twitter post. In addition, she defended the comments this morning, per a previous report from The Inquisitr. In further defense of the president, who she believes is not a racist, Conway asked a Jewish reporter what his ethnicity was.

Earlier Tuesday, the president refuted claims that he is a racist by taking to Twitter once again. In the same tweet, the president warned Republicans not to support a resolution in the House condemning his tweets, which was expected to be voted on Tuesday, CNN reported.

Those Tweets were NOT Racist. I don’t have a Racist bone in my body! The so-called vote to be taken is a Democrat con game. Republicans should not show “weakness” and fall into their trap. This should be a vote on the filthy language, statements and lies told by the Democrat…..

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 16, 2019

Trump reignited attacks on the four members of Congress Tuesday that include Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley. All are U.S. citizens and all except Omar were born in the United States.