Twitter Bans Posting Private Media Against Consent
Parag Aggarwal has swung into action as soon as he became the new CEO of Twitter. The microblogging platform has updated its Personal Information Protection Policy which bans users to share photos or videos of private individuals without their consent.
Under the existing policy, publishing other people's private information, such as phone numbers, addresses, and IDs, is already not allowed on Twitter. This update now includes threatening to expose private information or incentivizing others to do so.
"Sharing personal media, such as images or videos, can potentially violate a person’s privacy, and may lead to emotional or physical harm. The misuse of private media can affect everyone, but can have a disproportionate effect on women, activists, dissidents, and members of minority communities.", noted Twitter in its blog post
When private information or media has been shared on the platform, Twitter will require a first-person report or a report from an authorized representative in order to make the determination that the image or video has been shared without their permission.
"When we are notified by individuals depicted, or by an authorized representative, that they did not consent to having their private image or video shared, we will remove it," it noted further.
Noteworthy, This policy is not applicable to media featuring public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse.
"However, if the purpose of the dissemination of private images of public figures or individuals who are part of public conversations is to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence them, we may remove the content in line with our policy against abusive behavior.", said the company in its blog post.
