Twitter updated its private information safety policy this morning to ban sharing images or videos of private individuals without their consent. The platform already banned users from sharing others’ personal information without permission, like their address or location, identity documents, non-public contact information, financial information or medical data. But this update makes these anti-harassment and anti-doxxing policies more robust.
This doesn’t mean that Twitter will require consent from all individuals in a photo or video before its posted. But if a person depicted wants the media taken down, Twitter will take it down.
“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,” Twitter wrote in its update. “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.”
But in the case of public figures, Twitter clarified that it may remove content intended for harassment in line with its existing policies against abusive behavior, which also ban sharing non-consensual nude images. The company also says that when deciding whether to remove content about public figures, it will assess whether this information is already available in other public media, like TV and newspapers.
And also, in case you didn’t use the internet yesterday, Jack stepped down as CEO of Twitter. But there’s no indication that this policy change is related to his departure.
