Damage control after social backlash: Twitter reverses course on New York Post story, says it will no longer block hacked content

Wow, what a difference 24 hours make! After a lot of pressure and backlash from millions or Twitter users, Twitter announced this evening that it’s making   major changes to “hacked material” policies after ‘significant feedback.’ The announcement came after massive backlash to the censorship of a New York Post story about former Vice President Biden. It seems Twitter also changed its tune after following calls for for a Congressional subpoena

In a series of tweets, Vijaya Gadde, Legal, Policy and Trust & Safety Lead, said:

“Over the last 24 hours, we’ve received significant feedback (from critical to supportive) about how we enforced our Hacked Materials Policy yesterday. After reflecting on this feedback, we have decided to make changes to the policy and how we enforce it.

Why the changes? We want to address the concerns that there could be many unintended consequences to journalists, whistleblowers and others in ways that are contrary to Twitter’s purpose of serving the public conversation.

We put the Hacked Materials Policy in place back in 2018 to discourage and mitigate harms associated with hacks and unauthorized exposure of private information. We tried to find the right balance between people’s privacy and the right of free expression, but we can do better.

We’ve recently added new product capabilities, such as labels to provide people with additional context. We are no longer limited to Tweet removal as an enforcement action.

We believe that labeling Tweets and empowering people to assess content for themselves better serves the public interest and public conversation. The Hacked Material Policy is being updated to reflect these new enforcement capabilities.

So, what’s changing? 1. We will no longer remove hacked content unless it is directly shared by hackers or those acting in concert with them 2. We will label Tweets to provide context instead of blocking links from being shared on Twitter.

All the other Twitter Rules will still apply to the posting of or linking to hacked materials, such as our rules against posting private information, synthetic and manipulated media, and non-consensual nudity.

I’m grateful for everyone who has provided feedback and insights over the past day. Content moderation is incredibly difficult, especially in the critical context of an election. We are trying to act responsibly & quickly to prevent harms, but we’re still learning along the way.

We will continue to keep you all updated on our progress and more details as we update our policy pages to reflect these changes in the coming days.

Over the last 24 hours, we’ve received significant feedback (from critical to supportive) about how we enforced our Hacked Materials Policy yesterday. After reflecting on this feedback, we have decided to make changes to the policy and how we enforce it.

— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020

We put the Hacked Materials Policy in place back in 2018 to discourage and mitigate harms associated with hacks and unauthorized exposure of private information. We tried to find the right balance between people’s privacy and the right of free expression, but we can do better.

— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020

We believe that labeling Tweets and empowering people to assess content for themselves better serves the public interest and public conversation. The Hacked Material Policy is being updated to reflect these new enforcement capabilities.

— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020

All the other Twitter Rules will still apply to the posting of or linking to hacked materials, such as our rules against posting private information, synthetic and manipulated media, and non-consensual nudity.

— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020

We will continue to keep you all updated on our progress and more details as we update our policy pages to reflect these changes in the coming days.

— Vijaya Gadde (@vijaya) October 16, 2020