Twitter says its decision not to remove violent far-right videos shared by US President Donald Trump had nothing to do with the episode making global headlines.
A row erupted between British Prime Minister Theresa May and Trump when he retweeted three anti-Muslim videos posted by the deputy leader of fringe political group Britain First.
Two featured violent scenes, including someone being pushed off a roof and another person being assaulted, leading Twitter users to suggest they breached the site's guidelines.
A previous statement from Twitter indicated the content was allowed to remain online as it stoked debate.
It pointed to guidance in its help centre which says: "There may be the rare occasion when we allow controversial content or behaviour which may otherwise violate our rules to remain on our service because we believe there is a legitimate public interest in its availability."
But on Friday, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey went back on the suggestion, saying: "We mistakenly pointed to the wrong reason we didn't take action on the videos from earlier this week."
In a series of posts shared from the Twitter Safety account, the social media giant appeared to set out why Trump's tweets remained on the site.
It wrote: "Earlier this week Tweets were sent that contained graphic and violent videos. We pointed people to our Help Center to explain why they remained up, and this caused some confusion.
"To clarify: these videos are not being kept up because they are newsworthy or for public interest. Rather, these videos are permitted on Twitter based on our current media policy.
"We will continue to re-evaluate and examine our policies as the world around us evolves. We appreciate the feedback and will continue to listen."
One user replied to Mr Dorsey's post, asking him if he thought the reason the posts staying up was due to Twitter needing Mr Trump to drive traffic to the website, to which the tech chief replied: "No, I don't."
According to Twitter's media policy, a post breaches guidelines if it contains "gory media related to death, serious injury, violence or surgical procedures".
