Twitter’s new picture permission policy was aimed at combating online abuse, but US advocates and researchers said on Friday that far-right backers have employed it to protect themselves from scrutiny and to harass opponents. Even the social network admitted that the rollout of the rules, which say anyone can ask Twitter to take down images of themselves posted without their consent, was marred by malicious reports and its teams’ own errors. It was just the kind of trouble anti-racism advocates worried was coming after the policy was announced this week. Photo: AFP Their concerns were quickly validated, with anti-extremism researcher…