Twitter has created a team to review the site for harmful content ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, raising concern among some conservative users of the social media platform.
Reuters, which first reported the development, noted that both Twitter and Facebook were accused of helping extremists organize the siege to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's election victory.
According to the news agency, Twitter said employees from teams across the company, including site integrity and trust and safety, will watch for tweets and accounts that incite violence.
The social media platform didn’t say how many people were on the monitoring team. The company also said it would continue to monitor trending topics and search results on the platform for harmful content, Reuters reported.
One user quickly sent up an alarm.
"Major purge of conservatives coming. Plan accordingly," wrote the user.
Another poster noted: "it's funny because psychologically speaking the entirety of social media is ‘harmful content’ Twitter, monitor thyself."
One critic sarcastically wrote: "Twitter creates a second dedicated team to create ‘harmful content’ on 6 Jan anniversary, so Team 1 isn’t bored stiff," using the hashtag PropagandaWars.
Still another argued:"What they mean by ‘harmful’ is anything or anyone who will go against the Democrats’ narrative."
Another wrote: "it won't do much but paint conservatives in a broad brush to purge em in time for the Midterms."
In March, the chief executives of Twitter, Google, and Meta Platforms Inc. — the new name for Facebook — testified in a hearing before Congress and were asked by U.S. lawmakers whether their platforms bore some responsibility for the violent attack.
Jack Dorsey, who was Twitter's chief executive at the time, was the only honcho who answered "yes," adding the "broader ecosystem" had to be taken into account.
"Our approach both before and after January 6 has been to take strong enforcement action against accounts and Tweets that incite violence or have the potential to lead to offline harm," a Twitter spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters on Tuesday.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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