Twitter hides Trump tweet for ‘glorifying violence’

Twitter has hidden one of President Donald Trump’s tweets, after he tweeted just after midnight on Friday a threat to shoot rioters in Minnesota.

The protests come following the death of George Floyd, who died after an officer could be seen placing his knee on Floyd’s neck.

He repeatedly informed the police on the scene that he could not breathe, following which an ambulance arrived. The ambulance took Floyd to a local medical facility, where he was pronounced dead.

This has led to massive protest in Minnesota leading to a riot, and according to the St. Paul Police Department a number of businesses had been targeted amid the protests.

“More than 170 businesses damaged or looted. Dozens of fires,” it said in a tweet.

Donald Trump who condemned the death of Floyd and tweeted yesterday that the Department of Justice and FBI would be looking into the death, as now hit out at the rioters and threatened to turn the guns on those engaged in looting.

He wrote on Twitter;

“I can’t stand back & watch this happen to a great American City, Minneapolis. A total lack of leadership. Either the very weak Radical Left Mayor, Jacob Frey, get his act together and bring the City under control, or I will send in the National Guard & get the job done right…..,” he wrote.

“….These THUGS are dishonoring the memory of George Floyd, and I won’t let that happen. Just spoke to Governor Tim Walz and told him that the Military is with him all the way. Any difficulty and we will assume control but, when the looting starts, the shooting starts. Thank you!”

Twitter has now said the US President second tweet violates their rules about glorifying violence.

But instead of being deleted, it has been replaced with a warning and can be viewed by clicking on it.

The warning says

“Twitter has determined that it may be in the public’s interest for the Tweet to remain accessible.”

It is the latest in an escalating row between Twitter and the White House.

Twitter’s policy of adding a warning to, rather than deleting, tweets that break its rules when it comes to major public figures was announced in mid-2019. But the social network has never used it on Mr Trump – nor deleted any of his tweets before.

The same post remains unaltered on Facebook , without any warning attached.