Twitter prohibits posting photos of people without their consent. In particular, the development aims to further limit harassment.
Twitter allows its users to post photos as long as they don’t violate the platform’s terms of use. It turns out that now these conditions apply to photographs of people. At least that’s what we learned from the official Twitter post. In the latter case, it says that the platform now wants to prevent users from posting photos of other people without their explicit consent.
Twitter prohibits posting photos of people without their consent
According to the official statement: “This update to our terms and conditions will help limit the misuse of the media to harass, intimidate and reveal people’s identities, which disproportionately affects women, activists, dissidents and civilians. Members of minority communities.”The company clarifies that photographs taken by individuals during public events do not often violate these new conditions. In other words, it mostly deals with photos taken privately.
Development aimed at further limiting harassment, in particular
What’s more, it seems that Twitter hasn’t decided to search all the photos posted on its platform to check which ones actually violate these new terms. The company prefers, at least for now, to rely on user reports and examine them manually. Otherwise, even if the image is flagged, it cannot be removed from the platform.
The company specifically states: “We will take into account several elements, including the fact that the image is public or not and / or that it is covered by journalists – or if a particular image and accompanying text is added to a public exchange – and whether this is in line with public interests or makes sense to the community.” That is, a human analysis will be carried out to assess the situation and decide whether the publication of this photo violates the rules.
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. 🧵