November 30, 2021
-SF Gate
Twitter made a major update to its private information safety policy Tuesday morning, just a day after Jack Dorsey announced he was stepping down as CEO and Chief Technology Officer Parag Agrawal was taking over.
The social media platform said it’s no longer allowing users to share images or videos of private individuals without their consent. This in an additional to the company’s policy that bans users from publishing other people’s private information, such as phone numbers, addresses,and IDs.
Sharing images is an important part of folks' experience on Twitter. People should have a choice in determining whether or not a photo is shared publicly. To that end we are expanding the scope of our Private Information Policy. 🧵
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) November 30, 2021
“Beginning today, we will not allow the sharing of private media, such as images or videos of private individuals without their consent,” the San Francisco-based company posted on Twitter.
“There are growing concerns about the misuse of media and information that is not available elsewhere online as a tool to harass, intimidate, and reveal the identities of individuals,” Twitter explained in a blog post posted on its company site. “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.”
If individuals are featured in an image or video that another user posted on Twitter, they can contact the company and request for it to be removed if they didn’t offer consent.
“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,” Twitter said.
