Twitter hides Trump’s Minneapolis tweet and labels it for ‘glorifying violence’

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Twitter has placed a warning label over a tweet President Trump posted in response to Minneapolis riots following the killing of George Floyd. In the tweet, which was cited as “glorifying violence,” Trump seemed to call for violent retaliation against protestors if looting continued.

The decision is Twitter’s second riposte against Trump this week, as the social media platform previously placed a fact-checking label on a tweet about mail-in ballots. Trump responded to the earlier move by signing an executive order calling for a review of legal protections for speech on platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.

Twitter’s latest measure goes one step further by hiding the original tweet under a warning label. Users can click the label to see the tweet, but they cannot like it or retweet it.

“We’ve taken action in the interest of preventing others from being inspired to commit violent acts, but have kept the tweet on Twitter because it is important that the public still be able to see the tweet, given its relevance to ongoing matters of public importance,” reads a tweet from Twitter’s public relations team.

The killing of George Floyd, an African-American man, by Minneapolis police has sparked widespread protests in the city. Protests escalated in places to include people storming stores and seizing items. Some businesses have also been burned, and protestors took control of a police precinct and set it on fire.

While city leaders have called for calm and a return to peaceful protest, Trump took a more incendiary tone by threatening to send in the National Guard. Then he called the protestors “thugs” and wrote: “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.”