Twitter Inc. announced today that it has updated its safety policy to include banning the sharing of “private media” without the person’s consent.

The company said in a blog post that the sharing of such media has been used in the past to target women, dissidents, activists and minorities. Policies have always been there to protect people from “abusive content” being posted on the platform, but now no explicitly private media at all will be allowed on the platform if someone hasn’t given consent.

“There are growing concerns about the misuse of media and information that is not available elsewhere online as a tool to harass, intimidate, and reveal the identities of individuals,” the company said. “Sharing personal media, such as images or videos, can potentially violate a person’s privacy, and may lead to emotional or physical harm.”

If this sounds like Twitter going overboard, in a separate blog post the company said that it understands that people may appear in photos or videos and it is a “newsworthy event” or furthers “public discourse.” In such situations, the rules might not apply. Basically, the company wants to cut down on folks using media to “to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence,” and not restrict all media with people in it if those people have not given their consent.

“We will always try to assess the context in which the content is shared and, in such cases, we may allow the images or videos to remain on the service,” Twitter said. “If someone is sharing information in an effort to help someone involved in a crisis situation like in the aftermath of a violent event, we may not take action.”

If some people see themselves in an image or video and they don’t like that, they can click on the dots next to the post. From there they will be given the option to click on “Report Tweet” and then choose, “It’s abusive or harmful” and “Includes private information.”

Photo: Alexander Shatov/Flickr