Twitter will start labeling and suppressing some tweets from government officials, including Trump

Twitter has said that it will start labeling tweets from President Donald Trump or any other government officials, government appointees, or political candidates that violate its rules, although these tweets would remain on the site because they were in the public interest. In addition, those posts will be suppressed in a variety of ways.

What's the background?

In March, Twitter's head legal, policy, trust and safety, Vijaya Gadde, told the Washington Post that her company had been considering putting warning labels on tweets from public figures that violated its rules. Gadde said that the company was concerned about how those tweets might be viewed in the future when "there's no context."

Twitter CEO Jack Jorsey has previously said that his company would not remove any of Trump's tweets, even if they seemed to violate Twitter's rules, because they were inherently newsworthy.

Here's what we know

After the policy goes into effect, tweets by world leaders that Twitter believes violate its rules would include a disclaimer that reads:

The Twitter Rules about abusive behavior apply to this Tweet. However, Twitter has determined that it may be in the public's interest for the Tweet to remain available.

When a tweet is assigned this disclaimer, users will have to click through before they can see the tweet in question.

A spokesperson for Twitter told CNN Business "[t]his is not about perceived bias but about providing more clarity if our rules have been broken." Leaving these tweets on the website, the company said, could promote accountability for statements made by political figures or leaders.

It would apply to candidates and appointees as well as current officials, but only to those with more than 100,000 Twitter followers, according to a blog post by Twitter.

In addition to the disclaimer, flagged tweets would also fail to appear in the notifications tab, the Explore feature, live events pages, the Top Tweets feature on a user's timeline, safe search, or any push notifications for recommended tweets.

Tweets by anyone who fits that criteria that included "violence or calls to commit violence against an individual" could still be removed by Twitter.

Twitter said it "cannot predict the first time" that this system will be utilized, but that it will not apply retroactively to any tweets sent before Thursday.