Twitter Might Punish Users Who Tweet 'Learn To Code' At Laid-Off Journalists

According to a report from Reason magazine, Twitter users who comment the 'learn to code' advice at journalists who just lost their jobs might be treated as 'abusive behavior,' which is a violation of the social media site's terms of service. The rumor comes from Jon Levine, Media Editor at The Wrap. From the report: The Wrap's Jon Levine said representatives for the social media company had backed away from the position they related to him earlier, which was that the phrase 'learn to code' itself constituted abusive behavior. The new position seems to be that 'learn to code' is not de facto harassment, but could be considered harassment if tweeted aggressively as part of campaign to intimidate a specific user, in accordance with Twitter's somewhat vague abusive behavior policy. In an email to Reason, a Twitter spokesperson said: 'Twitter is responding to a targeted harassment campaign against specific individuals -- a policy that's long been against the Twitter Rules.' Last week, journalists from BuzzFeed, HuffPost, Yahoo, AOL, and others, were let go. BuzzFeed founder and CEO, Jonah Peretti, said the company 'would reduce headcount by 15%, or about 250 jobs, to around 1,100 employees globally,' reports The Guardian. 'At the same time, Verizon said it would trim 7% of headcount, about 800 people, from its media unit, which includes HuffPost, Yahoo and AOL. The job losses followed sales or cuts at Mic, Refinery29 and elsewhere.'

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