NEW YORK (AP) – Twitter has made it clear that it won’t ban Donald Trump from its service, despite calls for it from critics.
It’s a tricky balancing act: The president’s tweets draw attention to the struggling service, but tweets mocking reporters and rivals undercut Twitter’s commitment to make the service a more welcoming place.
Twitter’s policies prohibit harassment and hateful conduct. But there is a lot of wiggle room as to what constitutes such behavior. Trump, meanwhile, has defended his use of social media, tweeting in June that the mainstream media doesn’t want him to get his “honest and unfiltered message out.”
CEO Jack Dorsey told NBC in May that it’s “really important to hear directly from leadership” to hold people accountable and have conversations out in the open, not behind closed doors.