OAKLAND, Calif. — Twitter added a label to another post by President Trump on Tuesday, the fifth time it has said he violated its policies and further escalating the company’s battle with the president over his often incendiary tweets.
In an early-morning tweet, Mr. Trump threatened “serious force” against any protesters who tried to establish an autonomous zone in Washington, D.C., as they have in Seattle. Twitter hid his message behind a warning label saying the president violated the company’s policies forbidding abusive behavior.
After years of taking a hands-off approach, Twitter began to moderate Mr. Trump’s posts more aggressively last month. It added fact-checking messages to some of his tweets about mail-in ballots and appended a warning label to a tweet in which he suggested that protesters would be shot. Last week, the company put an explanatory label on a tweet from Mr. Trump that included a doctored video about a “racist baby.”
In response, Mr. Trump accused Twitter of working to stifle conservative voices and harm his re-election campaign. Last month, he signed an executive order intended to roll back legal protections for Twitter and other internet companies. A lawsuit has been filed to block the order.
Despite pushback from the president, Twitter has continued its efforts to moderate his tweets, setting it apart from social media companies that have avoided taking action on the president’s posts. While Mr. Trump often posts identical content on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, Facebook has left most of them untouched. Facebook did remove the “racist baby” video after receiving a complaint from the copyright holder.
Twitter said Mr. Trump’s tweet about the autonomous zone included “the presence of a threat of harm against an identifiable group.” Such a tweet would be removed if a regular user posted it, but Twitter provides an exception to this policy for Mr. Trump and other government officials, allowing their messages to remain online behind a warning label.
“This Tweet will remain on the service given its relevance to ongoing public conversation,” Twitter said.