This is a nice, well-intentioned idea that sounds like an absolute horrorshow to actually implement and enforce.
https://twitter.com/twittersafety/status/1465683094581792771
Not least because social media itself has made it incredibly thorny to determine who qualifies as a “public figure” as opposed to a “private individual.”
The practical use case (because stuff like non-consensual nudes was already covered) is going to be this: A person is captured on photo or video behaving in some way many consider inappropriate, probably in a semi-public setting, and wants it taken down as it starts going viral.
Have they become a public figure if the image/video has already gone viral on other platforms? If mainstream news outlets have referenced it? Can going viral on Twitter itself make you a public figure?
Suppose the person is: A local cop, on duty. A local cop, off duty. A YouTuber or Twitter/Instagram user with a few thousand followers. A pastor well known in their own community. A minor celebrity among Minnesota anime cosplayers. Among Sri Lankan anime cosplayers.
Even assuming we had a clean, objective rule for who qualifies as a “public figure” (which we don’t), there are going to be tons of cases where it’s not trivial for some Twitter employee to check whether it applies (via, say, a quick English language Google search.)
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