Twitter refuses widower's plea to remove trolling Trump tweets over death of his wife

Twitter will not remove tweets by President Donald Trump that push a conspiracy theory about the death of a young woman almost twenty years ago, despite a heartfelt plea from her husband.

The president’s tweets accuse MSNBC host Joe Scarborough of playing a part in the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, who worked in his congressional office in Florida when he served in the House of Representatives. Mr Scarborough was in Washington DC at the time of her death.

Timothy Klausutis, the widower of the late Ms Klausutis, sent a letter to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey late last week asking for the company to delete the tweets due to the pain they are causing him and his family.

Today, despite an outcry in the media and on its own platform, the company did not agree to remove the tweets, but said that it would be making changes to address incidences such as this in the future.

It is possible the tweets could be labelled as misleading information in line with current changes to the platform.

Ms Klausutis died after fainting and hitting her head on a desk. She had earlier said to friends that she was not feeling well, and a coroner's report found she had an undiagnosed heart problem that had led her to faint.

Last week, after weeks of tweets from the president reviving the conspiracy theory, Mika Brzezinski, cohost of Morning Joe with Mr Scarborough and since 2018 his wife, gave an impassioned closing monologue to the show in which she demanded Twitter do something.

The following day Mr Klausutis sent his letter to Mr Dorsey in which he said that he has tried to protect the memory of his wife when faced with "a constant barrage of falsehoods, half-truths, innuendo and conspiracy theories since the day she died".

Mr Klausutis not only singled out the president, but also his son Donald Trump Jr, for spreading lies about his wife.

"My request is simple: Please delete these tweets," he wrote, citing that they violate Twitter's community rules and terms of service, and that an ordinary user would be banished from the platform for such an offence.

The deeply personal plea to Mr Dorsey concludes: "My wife deserves better."

In a statement to CNN, Twitter said: "We are deeply sorry about the pain these statements, and the attention they are drawing, are causing the family.

"We've been working to expand existing product features and policies so we can more effectively address things like this going forward, and we hope to have those changes in place shortly."

In the past Twitter has removed content and accounts for the same violations, and its hands-off approach to content has shifted in the direction of some moderation in recent years, particularly regarding hate speech and misinformation.

The onset of Covid-19 and an avalanche of misinformation and theories regarding treatments, cures and causes, pushed the company to speed up its response as to how it would deal with misleading information.

It is not clear if Twitter intends to roll out the same functionality to other subject matters.

Mr Klausutis has declined to comment on the company's decision, and it is unknown if he received a personal response to his letter.