Bulletins

Twitter confused everyone with its new private info policy

Who exactly is a private person and what constitutes the public interest?

A Twitter app icon on a phone screen

The policy forbids sharing "personal" images or videos of people without their consent.

Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash

Twitter announced Tuesday that sharing private photos and videos of people without their consent will now be a violation of the company's private information policy, which already forbids sharing things like contact information and identity documents.


"There are growing concerns about the misuse of media and information that is not available elsewhere online as a tool to harass, intimidate, and reveal the identities of individuals," the company wrote in a blog post. "Sharing personal media, such as images or videos, can potentially violate a person’s privacy, and may lead to emotional or physical harm."

The news prompted widespread confusion about exactly what constitutes "personal media," how Twitter will enforce the policy and what sorts of exceptions the company will make. Twitter initially said that the policy would not apply to "public figures or individuals when media and accompanying Tweet text are shared in the public interest or add value to public discourse."

But that description left plenty of gray area for critics to pick apart. How would the policy affect photos of people in a crowd or a stranger wearing a funny hat on the subway? "I am SO confused. Does this mean that if I take a picture of, say, a concert in Central Park, I need the permission of everyone in it?" tweeted Jeff Jarvis, professor of journalism at the City University of New York. "We diminish the sense of the public to the detriment of the public."

Others wondered how this policy would affect, for instance, crowdsourced efforts to identify Jan. 6 rioters or citizen journalism.

Twitter responded to the pushback in a series of tweets that further clarified the policy, noting that images and videos from large public events "would generally not violate this policy." Neither would "eyewitness accounts or on the ground reports from developing events."

Still, Twitter's new policy seems to give the company ample room for discretion. The blog post said the company will weigh the public interest value of sharing private media in relation to a crisis or newsworthy event against the safety risks to the individual. That includes assessing whether the image is also being shared by mainstream media. But just what constitutes a newsworthy event remains in question.

"Context matters," Twitter wrote in its updated thread. "Our existing private information policy includes many exceptions in order to enable robust reporting on newsworthy events and conversations that are in the public interest."

The company's goal is to mitigate harassment that manifests in photos and videos being shared without people's consent. But its policy extends much further than harassment and could radically change how people share photos and videos on the service. Twitter's policy states that while first-time violators of the rule will only be required to remove the offending media, users who violate the policy twice will have their accounts permanently suspended.

The policy is mostly retroactive, requiring individuals who appear in the photo or video to first report it either themselves or through a representative. "We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service," the blog post read.

The change came one day after Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey resigned as CEO, handing the title over to the company's former CTO, Parag Agrawal.

This post has been updated to include additional information from Twitter.

Latest Bulletins

Mobile game revenue will decline for the first time in history this year, market research firm Newzoo now says in a revised outlook for the 2022 global games market. While the whole game industry is expected to contract by 4.3% — another first since Newzoo began tracking the market in 2007 — the company is predicting a 6.4% decline in mobile game spending on top of a 4.2% decline in console game spending.

Keep ReadingShow less

Amazon is planning to lay off thousands of employees, Protocol has learned, ahead of what the company has cautioned will be a slow holiday shopping season.

Keep ReadingShow less

Google agreed to pay $391.5 million and make changes to its user privacy controls as part of a settlement with a coalition of 40 state attorneys general. The coalition accused Google of misleading customers about location-tracking practices that informed ad targeting.

Keep ReadingShow less

FTX has filed for bankruptcy and the crypto company also announced that founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce recently updated its internal policies to make it easier for managers to terminate employees for performance issues without HR involvement, Protocol has learned, a move that comes as the software giant looks to shed as many as 2,500 jobs.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said fraud and scam reports comprise the top complaint it receives about virtual currencies — and that customers are finding little help from companies when it happens.

Keep ReadingShow less

Elon Musk sent his first email to Twitter staff late Wednesday, warning of a difficult economic road ahead and telling employees they need to be in office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. "Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," he began, ominously.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance isn’t buying FTX after all. The crypto giant said Wednesday it has decided that it “will not pursue the potential acquisition” based on a “corporate due diligence” review.

Keep ReadingShow less

On Wednesday, John Kerry unveiled a plan for a new carbon credit program aimed at mobilizing private capital to help middle-income countries transition away from coal and move toward renewable energy.

Keep ReadingShow less

Meta announced it was laying off more than 11,000 employees Wednesday morning, slashing jobs in its recruiting department and refocusing its remaining team on AI discovery, ads, and its investment in the metaverse.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a message to employees that was also posted online. "I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted."

Keep ReadingShow less

Al Gore has one mission this week at COP27, and that’s to give climate negotiators what he hopes will be a critical tool to address the crisis at hand: an independent, global inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, down to the individual facility.

The Climate TRACE coalition just released the world’s most detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which Gore, a founding member, is unveiling on Wednesday at the United Nations climate summit in Egypt.

Keep ReadingShow less

Way back in March, your friendly Protocol Climate team offered you some tips for writing a climate plan that doesn’t suck. Surely you took that advice. But if for some reason you didn’t, the United Nations has your back.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said Tuesday the crypto powerhouse signed a deal to acquire rival FTX.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce is preparing for a major round of layoffs that could affect as many as 2,500 workers across the software vendor, Protocol has learned, in a bid to cut costs amid a new activist investor challenge and harsh economic conditions.

Keep ReadingShow less

BlockFi has introduced a new digital assets interest product for accredited investors, after previously agreeing to shut down a yield-paying crypto product that the SEC said was illegal.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Justice Department said Monday it seized $3.4 billion worth of bitcoin stolen in the 2012 hack of the Silk Road dark web marketplace.

Keep ReadingShow less

U.S. election infrastructure is exceedingly secure, and voter fraud here is so rare it’s comparable to your annual chances of getting struck by lightning. Despite this, former President Donald Trump and a long list of allies in the Republican Party have spent the last two years questioning the overall integrity of the U.S. election system. Many of those allies are now candidates themselves, and their coordinated attack on the country’s status as a democracy is not a relic of 2020. Some have already started repeating these “Big Lie” charges ahead of next week’s midterms. And the social platforms that help them spread their message have prepared few measures to stop it.

Keep ReadingShow less

The White House just laid out its climate tech priorities to reach net zero by 2050.

Keep ReadingShow less

Coinbase said Thursday that it lost more users in the third quarter. But the decline wasn’t the disastrous drop that Wall Street was expecting, and that sparked a rally in the crypto company’s shares after-hours.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Biden administration announced $9 billion in funding Wednesday to improve home efficiency, which could help support the installation of up to 500,000 heat pumps. With winter approaching and utilities warning of gas shortages, there are some major challenges facing the technology that money can be used to tackle.

Keep ReadingShow less

Block beat earnings expectations, with strong growth largely fueled by its Cash App business. Traders sent shares up more than 12% after-hours Thursday.

Keep ReadingShow less

Stripe is laying off 14% of its staff, its co-founders said Thursday, as the fintech startup must start "building differently for leaner times."

Keep ReadingShow less

Roku saw its revenue growth slow in Q3, and warned investors Wednesday that things are about to get worse: “A lot of Q4 ad campaigns are being canceled,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood during the company’s Q4 earnings call. “We’re seeing lots of big categories pull back. Telecom, insurance … even toy marketers are planning on reducing their spending.”

Keep ReadingShow less

Green jobs and corporate climate pledges abound, but skilled sustainability professionals are scarce.

Keep ReadingShow less

Robinhood reported a drop in third-quarter revenue but also a narrower loss on Wednesday, in a sign that it might be stabilizing its business as it attempts to recover from a staggering drop in the stock and crypto trading activity that fueled its growth.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bulletins