Trump Doesn't Break Twitter Rules
CAMEROTA: President Trump's racist tweets providing a test for Twitter's new stance to label and down rank tweets that break their rules on hateful conduct. The social network says the president's latest remarks do not meet that threshold. But how is that possible? Joining us now is Donie O'Sullivan, CNN politics and technology reporter. Here's what their written policy is, Donie. We prohibit targeting individuals with repeated slurs, tropes or other content that intends to dehumanize, degrade or reinforce negative or harmful stereotypes about a protected category. Twitter goes on, we are committed to combatting abuse motivated by hatred, prejudice or intolerance, particularly abuse that seeks to silence the voices of those who have been historically marginalized. How does the president's tweet not fall into that category?</s>DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN POLITICS AND TECHNOLOGY REPORTER: I know, especially when you hear the mention the "trope" there. I mean if the phrase "go back to where you came from" can't be understood as a trope, I mean what is. I think Twitter -- and many people, I think, would be uncomfortable with the idea that a platform could just take down the tweets of the leader of the free world. That is why just three weeks ago Twitter brought in a new policy whereby they said if a world leader like Trump is to break our rules, we will label it. We will say this -- we have -- he has broken our rules but we are leaving the tweet up because it is in the public interest and so people can hold him accountable. But even here we say the company is reluctant to do that.</s>CAMEROTA: They're not labelling it.</s>O'SULLIVAN: No.</s>BERMAN: They -- they -- OK, they didn't label it?</s>O'SULLIVAN: No.</s>BERMAN: The bottom line here is that the notion of President Trump has created so many challenges for Twitter. It's just clear they don't know what to do it with him.</s>O'SULLIVAN: Absolutely. And, I mean, if you think about, in 2016, we saw the role social media played between the rise of Trump and also how Russia used it to interfere in the election. With these policy decisions, when you think about Twitter leaving this up, FaceBook leaving up the Nancy Pelosi video, you can see how policy decisions made in Silicon Valley could have a real impact on the 2020 election. And there's no transparency around it. I mean we ask -- we point to Twitter to their own policies and said, is this not a contradiction of your policies.</s>CAMEROTA: And what did they say?</s>O'SULLIVAN: They did not elaborate on it. They said it didn't break our rules, that's it, and they would not explain it. I mean there's -- they go to Congress, they say, we are being transparent, we are, you know, reforming, we are putting in place these new rules but then they'll give us no insight into the decision making process around that.</s>CAMEROTA: So --</s>BERMAN: What are they being transparent on?</s>CAMEROTA: Yes.</s>BERMAN: I mean what are they even claiming to be transparent about?</s>O'SULLIVAN: I mean I think they do a victory lap every time they say, we've implemented this new policy. Take a few weeks ago when they said, we're going to label these tweets in the public interest to say, you know, we -- we want to be transparent, that this is the reason why we are leaving a tweet up even if it violates our standards. So they announce that, pat themselves on the back and then they come back three weeks later, we have an incident like this, and they won't even explain how, when it clearly seems to contradict their policy, why they're not acting on it.</s>CAMEROTA: So isn't the bottom line, really, that Twitter is a sham?</s>O'SULLIVAN: I think Twitter is extremely sensitive towards the claims of perceived anti-conservative bias, which you see from Republicans pretty much every week. Senator Ted Cruz is even holding a hearing on that very issue today of perceived bias against conservatives.</s>CAMEROTA: But, I mean, let -- but forget -- forget Democrat, forget Republican, forget liberal, forget conservative, weren't they going to label falsehoods? And this tweet is rife with inaccuracies. These women are U.S. citizens. They were -- the three of them were born here. So it's wrong. So were they going to also label things that were this much in the public interest that were inaccurate?</s>O'SULLIVAN: Well, that is, again, another massive challenge for them. That is something Twitter has been far behind FaceBook on. Facebook has been labeling false information, Twitter not so much. But, again, another challenge, and particularly as we see in the lead up to 2020.</s>BERMAN: Unwilling or unable to curate in any kind of way it does seem.</s>CAMEROTA: Donie, thank you very much for all of that.</s>O'SULLIVAN: Thank you.</s>CAMEROTA: OK, now to this. There's an update. You remember author E. Jean Carroll. Well, she is now considering legal action against President Trump for an alleged sexual assault in the 1990s. But are her options limited? We're going to ask E. Jean Carroll and a top lawyer straight ahead.