Twitter Removes Tweet from Mahathir Mohamad for Glorifying Violence
Twitter removed a tweet from former Malaysian leader
Mahathir Mohamad for glorifying violence but France’s digital minister demanded
the company also ban him from its platform.
Cedric O said he told the managing director of
Twitter in France that Mahathir’s account “must be immediately suspended,” O
tweeted on Thursday. “If not, @twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call
for murder.”
Mahathir, 95 and a former Malaysian prime minister,
appeared to say the deaths of French people would be justified, in the wake of
attacks that French authorities attributed to extremists.
“Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill
millions of people for the massacres of the past,” he said Thursday, in a
series of tweets that began with his thoughts on the beheading of a middle
school teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
Twitter at first put a label on the tweet saying it
glorified violence but left it up because it “may be in the public’s interest.”
The tweet was later removed and replaced with a tag
saying it broke the rules. The company said it took action for violating its
policy on glorification of violence, which doesn’t allow threats against
individuals or a group of people.
