Why Twitter won't ban Trump

Twitter has made it clear that it won't ban DonaldTrump from its service, whether the president follows its rulesagainst harassment or not.

That's no surprise: The president's tweets draw attention to thestruggling service, even if tweets mocking reporters and rivalsundercut Twitter's stated commitment to make the service a welcomingplace.

The company has been cracking down on accounts that violate itsterms of service, and Trump's critics say he has broken Twitter's rulesmultiple times.

Calls to ban Trump from Twitter, largely by liberal activists,writers and Twitter users, sounded even before he became president.They were renewed recently when the president posted a mock video ofhim "body slamming" a man whose face was covered by CNN logo.

Groups such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Presscondemned the video as a threat against journalists. AWhite Houseaide said at the time that the tweet should not be seen as athreat.

'Hear directly'

Twitter does ban harassment and hateful conduct, but there is alot of wiggle room as to what constitutes such behaviour. Forinstance, though it may be crude to tweet that a TV host was"bleeding badly from a face-lift," that is at best in a grey areawhen it comes to violating Twitter terms.

• Trump insults MSNBC hosts Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough on Twitter

When asked about Trump, Twitter says it doesn't comment onindividual accounts. But CEO Jack Dorsey told NBC in May that it's"really important to hear directly from leadership" to hold peopleaccountable and have conversations out in the open, not behindclosed doors.

It also makes business sense: Trump's tweets are constantly inheadlines, calling attention to Twitter and, ideally, getting moreusers to sign up.

For now, it doesn't appear to be helping. On Thursday, Twittersaid its monthly average user base in the April-June quarter grew fiveper cent from the previous year, to 328 million, but it was unchangedfrom the previous quarter.

Twitter's stock fell more than nine per cent,to $17.75, in pre-market trading Thursday after the numbers came out. Twitter has never turned a profit. On Thursday, the SanFrancisco-based company reported a second-quarter loss of $116million, or 16 cents per share, compared with a loss of $107million, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier. Revenue declined five per cent, to $574 million from $602 million,inching past Wall Street's muted expectations.

Important tweets

Free speech advocates agree it's better for Trump to stay.

Emma Llanso, director of the Center for Democracy &Technology'sFree Expression Project, said Trump's tweets are "very clearlypolitically relevant speech" and are even being cited in courtcases challenging the president's policies. For example, a U.S.appeals court used Trump's tweets in June to block his travel ban onpeople from six predominantly Muslim countries.

• Trumpon Twitter confirms he's under investigation

Llanso said it's understandable why there has been "so muchpressure" on social media platforms to crack down on harassment. Long before Trump was elected, users and online safety advocatescalled on Twitter to do something about abuse on its service.

But when it comes to the president's outsized presence onTwitter, she'd rather have a private company avoid deciding whatshould and shouldn't be allowed. Rather, she said, "we should belooking to the instruments of our democracy as the appropriate placeto hold the president accountable."

Twitter appears to agree. Earlier this month, the companyannounced that it is now taking some action, including suspensions,on 10 times the number of abusive accounts than it did a year ago(though it did not give a number). Trump, of course, was not one of them.

In June, the president defended his use of social media, tweetingthat the mainstream media doesn't want him to get his "honest andunfiltered message out." The White House did not immediatelyrespond to a message for comment on Thursday morning.

Blocked users suing

Twitter provides a platform for the president to interact withthe world directly, without intermediaries such as the news media.

But if it's important for people to hear directly from Trump, freespeech advocates say, it's also important for Trump to listen andto allow people to see his messages. His blocking of individual users on the service is the subject ofa lawsuit.

• Commander in tweet: Trump's first 100 days, as seen through his Twitter account

Comedian Dana Goldberg, who says she has been blocked by thepresident but is not part of the lawsuit, likened it to him "givingthe State of the Union and blocking out the TV sets of people whovoted for [Hillary]Clinton."

Her offence? Goldberg, who has about 7,680 followers comparedwith Trump's 34.6 million, said it was her tweet calling Trump "asad man" after he wished SenatorJohn McCain well following a cancerdiagnosisdespite deriding McCain's war record before.

"The fact that I was blocked by the president of the UnitedStates, it's insane," she said.