Twitter Removes Tweet from Mahathir Mohamad for Glorifying Violence

Twitter removed a tweet from former Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad for glorifying violence but France’s digital minister demanded the company also ban him from its platform.

Cedric O said he told the managing director of Twitter in France that Mahathir’s account “must be immediately suspended,” O tweeted on Thursday. “If not, @twitter would be an accomplice to a formal call for murder.”

Mahathir, 95 and a former Malaysian prime minister, appeared to say the deaths of French people would be justified, in the wake of attacks that French authorities attributed to extremists.

“Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of people for the massacres of the past,” he said Thursday, in a series of tweets that began with his thoughts on the beheading of a middle school teacher who showed caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.

Twitter at first put a label on the tweet saying it glorified violence but left it up because it “may be in the public’s interest.”

The tweet was later removed and replaced with a tag saying it broke the rules. The company said it took action for violating its policy on glorification of violence, which doesn’t allow threats against individuals or a group of people.