Here at Thunderbolt Digital, we like to keep up to date with the latest changes on the top social media platforms. Last week, Twitter announced some updates that will be coming soon.
Twitter have started making steps to minimise abusive content on their site. They began trialling this idea in November last year and are just introducing the changes this month, in a bid to make the site safer for users.
As an agency that frequently deals with our client’s online visibility on Twitter, we understand how defamatory content from spamming and abusive accounts, can be detrimental to a business, and difficult to syphon through.
Twitter have looked to combat abusive content by introducing safer search results; the update will remove tweets that contain potentially sensitive content – mainly content that comes from blocked or muted accounts. The content is visible to all users at first, however, an individual user is able to mute content that they find offensive, on a case by case basis, or as a specific setting.
Finally, a feature will be added to Twitter that will look to remove potentially abusive tweets. Twitter will bring the most relevant tweets to the top of the feed for a user to see, whilst hiding irrelevant content that is deemed abusive. The content is still there and a user can still find it by clicking “Show less relevant replies”. Adding this feature not only makes the site safer but tidies up the user experience.
Twitter is using machine learning to sort through what it deems ‘low-quality replies’ by looking at certain red flags. For example, if a user’s tweet gets a nasty response from a newly created account with zero followers and who doesn’t follow them, the chances are it’s not going to be contributing anything meaningful to the conversation. Thus, it will be hidden.
These changes intendedly correspond with Safer Internet Day last week; an entire day yearly dedicated to helping make sure the internet is safer for young children and people.