Bloomberg News reports:
As U.S. president, Donald Trump receives special treatment from Twitter Inc. when he violates the company’s rules around offensive or misleading content. That exemption will end in January if he loses the presidency. The social network treats transgressions from world leaders differently than those from regular users, and often leaves up tweets that violate its content policies, adding a warning instead of forcing users to delete the posts.
This is part of Twitter’s philosophy that people should be able to hear from world leaders even when they share controversial posts because their messages are inherently newsworthy. But former world leaders aren’t protected under that policy. High-profile politicians no longer in office — like former U.S. President Barack Obama — are treated like regular users if they violate Twitter’s rules.
BREAKING NEWS: Twitter Confirms All Special Twitter-Feed Protections for Donald Trump Will End January 20, 2021, If He Is Not Re-elected; Trump Would Be Subject to Post Removal and Account Suspension or Termination If He Violates Twitter’s Terms of Service https://t.co/BtIhUfJpki
— Seth Abramson (@SethAbramson) November 6, 2020