San Francisco, Jul 16 (IANS): Twitter has said it will not remove US President Donald Trump's controversial tweets telling four Congresswomen to "go back" to their respective home countries.
In a statement given to The Verge late Monday, Twitter said it "won't be treating President Donald Trump's recent tweets telling congresswomen to 'go back' to their supposed home countries as a violation of its hateful conduct policy".
It also means Twitter will not put out a notice on Trump's tweet, as promised earlier this month, even it violates its policies for posting harmful or vicious content.
"We will never be a Socialist or Communist Country. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY HERE, YOU CAN LEAVE! It is your choice, and your choice alone. This is about love for America. Certain people HATE our country...." tweeted Trump.
Trump attacked a group of Congresswomen -- Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) -- by saying they came from "countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe" and telling them to "go back" to "the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came".
The tweets invoked racist and xenophobic rhetoric but for Twitter, this was not yet enough to flag off such content.
The four Congresswomen later organized a press conference on Capitol Hill and hit back at Trump.
"This is a president who has openly violated the very value our country aspires to uphold. This is the agenda of white nationalists," Omar said.
"We don't leave the things that we love. We are focused on making it better," Ocasio-Cortez added.
The new Twitter rules apply on accounts belonging to political figures, verified users and verified accounts with more than 100,000 followers.
"In instances where a tweet violates our rules and our review doesn't find that it would be in the public interest to leave it up, we will require the account owner to remove the Tweet. Either way, this notice will make our decision-making clearer," said the company.
In Trump's case, however, Twitter perhaps has some hidden rules not visible to the common users.