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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has announced new set of rules regulating the social media platform concerning sexual harassment and threats of violence against women, inspired by actress Rose McGowan.
‘We see voices being silenced on Twitter every day’
“We see voices being silenced on Twitter every day. We’ve been working to counteract this for the past 2 years,” Dorsey wrote in a series of posts, adding, according to The Hill, “We decided to take a more aggressive stance in our rules and how we enforce them.”
“New rules around: unwanted sexual advances, non-consensual nudity, hate symbols, violent groups, and tweets that glorifies violence,” Dorsey added, “These changes will start rolling out in the next few weeks. More to share next week.”
As mentioned the new rules have come out as a response to the company’s decision to ban actress Rose McGowan on Wednesday, after she published a private phone number on her account, a violation of Twitter’s terms of service. The posts in question reportedly concerned Ben Affleck and Harvey Weinstein, according to The Washington Post.
“Twitter is proud to empower and support the voices on our platform, especially those that speak truth to power. We stand with the brave women and men who use Twitter to share their stories, and will work hard every day to improve our processes to protect those voices,” read a statement from the company explaining the ban that Dorsey republished.
‘I love this platform and know it can be better’
The decision to ban McGowan brought about a boycott against the company from other figures in the media, including other actresses. Model Chrissy Teigen wrote on social media, for example, “Ladies. Let’s do this. #WomenBoycottTwitter. Not because of hate but because I love this platform and know it can be better.”
According to The Independent, Twitter has since contacted McGowan after the incident, explaining in a statement, “We have been in touch with Ms. McGowan’s team…We want to explain that her account was temporarily locked because one of her Tweets included a private phone number, which violates our Terms of Service…The Tweet was removed and her account has been unlocked. We will be clearer about these policies and decisions in the future.
