Washington
CNN
—
Twitter quickly suspended Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines’s account for violations of the corporate’s delicate media coverage.
For a number of hours on Tuesday, Daines’ Twitter profile displayed messages indicating the account was “quickly unavailable as a result of it violates the Twitter Media Coverage.”
In keeping with an aide to the senator, Daines’ account was suspended resulting from his profile image, which had proven Daines and his spouse posing whereas searching. A separate marketing campaign account for Daines with a special profile image was unaffected.
A message from Twitter notifying Daines of his suspension, obtained by CNN, confirmed the corporate had decided the profile image violated Twitter’s rule in opposition to “graphic violence or grownup content material in profile pictures.”
Twitter didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. In an announcement, Rachel Dumke, a spokesperson for Daine, referred to as the suspension “preposterous” and mentioned Twitter had knowledgeable Daines’ workplace that the suspension would final till the profile image was eliminated.
“That is insane. Twitter ought to instantly reverse this suspension,” mentioned Philip Letsou, a spokesman for the Nationwide Republican Senatorial Committee, in an announcement.
In keeping with an electronic mail despatched by Twitter Belief and Security VP Ella Irwin to Daines’ workplace and obtained by CNN, the corporate’s coverage on graphic profile pictures exists resulting from a technical limitation of Twitter’s platform.
“We don’t permit pictures of lifeless animals or blood in profile photographs as a result of we’re unable to label them as NSFW and preserve them from being seen by customers who particularly don’t need to see graphic pictures,” Irwin wrote.
Daines’ profile image had included an animal exhibiting what gave the impression to be small flecks of blood on its coat, and that have been tough to discern with out increasing the picture.
Addressing the scenario on Tuesday, new Twitter proprietor Elon Musk mentioned Twitter’s delicate media coverage was “being fastened.”
“Coverage in opposition to exhibiting blood in profile pic is being amended to ‘clearly exhibiting blood with out clicking on the profile pic’,” he tweeted. “The intent is to keep away from individuals being pressured to see ugly profile pics.”
Dumke later instructed CNN on Tuesday that Musk personally reached out to Daines by telephone and reinstated his account.
