By Reuters via NBC News
US President Donald Trump will be subject to the same Twitter rules as any other regular user when President-elect Joe Biden takes office on January 20, the company confirmed this week.
Twitter places 'public interest' tags on some tweets from 'world leaders'
that violate the platform's rules
and would otherwise be removed.
Those same tweets, when they are from political candidates and elected or government officials, are hidden by a warning and Twitter takes steps to restrict their reach.
The company said this treatment does not apply to former officials.
"This policy framework applies to today's world leaders and candidates for public office, and not to private citizens when they no longer hold these positions," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement.
The platform has added multiple warnings and labels to tweets on President Trump's official account (@realDonaldTrump), including a large portion of those he posted since Election Day last Tuesday, in which he launched unfounded accusations of fraud. electoral.
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The platform first hid one of its tweets behind a 'public interest' tag in May, when the president violated the company's policy against glorification of violence.
Under Facebook Inc. policies, after Biden took office in January, Trump's posts would also not be exempt from review by Facebook's third-party fact-checking partners.
Under Facebook's rules,
politicians whose posts are exempt from verification are those candidates running for public office
, those currently in public office, and many of those appointed to cabinets, along with political parties and their leaders.
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The rules specify that "former candidates for public office or former officials continue to be covered by our third-party data verification program."
Facebook did not respond to questions from Reuters about how it would treat Trump's account.
Biden's victory in Pennsylvania on Saturday put the Democratic presidential candidate above the threshold of 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the presidency.
Republican Trump has not acknowledged defeat and has vowed to challenge the election results in court.