White House advisor Stephen Miller is widely seen as the mastermind behind President Donald Trump's controversial policy of separating parents from their children at the US southern border. Yesterday, Splinter, a news and opinion site that was previously known as Fusion, published Miller's personal cell phone number.
When Splinter and others started tweeting out Miller's number, it got the attention of Twitter's content police. Twitter doesn't allow users to post private information about someone else without their consent, and this rule doesn't have an exception for people responsible for intensely controversial policies.
Users who shared Miller's number were forced to delete the tweet and had their accounts locked out for several hours. Some people have reported that users could get suspended just for linking to the Splinter story—even if the tweet itself didn't contain Miller's number.
A big question for Twitter here was how many users it would be willing to punish for sharing Miller's number—and whether continued enforcement of the policy would become pointless once the number had circulated widely. That could have been a huge danger, as there are a lot of people who are angry at Miller over the cruel policies he has reportedly pushed inside the White House.
But Twitter found a way to neatly sidestep the issue.
"At this time, the number that was previously being shared is no longer a valid number and, as such, we are no longer enforcing our policy against individuals Tweeting or linking to that information," Twitter told Buzzfeed.
Presumably, that's because Miller was forced to change his cell phone number after receiving an avalanche of calls and texts. And if he no longer owns the number, then it doesn't violate his privacy to publish it.
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Ars Technica
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