Last Updated: April 18, 2023, 02:17 AM IST
Earlier, the wider public would not necessarily know if a tweet had been moderated in this way. Now, Twitter says that will change. (File Photo)
Twitter plans to add visible labels to tweets that have been identified as potentially violating its policies, which has impacted their visibility
Reaffirming its commitment to transparency under the Elon Musk regime, Twitter has introduced a new policy that aims to increase transparency around the enforcement actions it takes against hateful tweets.
Twitter plans to add visible labels to tweets that have been identified as potentially violating its policies, which has impacted their visibility. Starting with tweets that violate its Hateful Conduct policy, Twitter said it will expand the feature to other policy areas in the “coming months.”
“Restricting the reach of Tweets, also known as visibility filtering, is one of our existing enforcement actions that allows us to move beyond the binary ‘leave up versus take down’ approach to content moderation,” the social media giant said in a blog post.
The company says that the latest move is designed to result in more proportional and transparent enforcement actions for everyone on the platform, without affecting a user’s account.
We’ve heard from many of you that you want to know what Freedom of Speech, Not Reach looks like in practice. This is the label that’ll be displayed when we’ve limited the visibility of a Tweet. Keep the feedback coming! https://t.co/AUYDP2kYPi pic.twitter.com/BaJuSfcz0q
When tweets violate Twitter’s policies, the company can limit its reach through “visibility filtering,” excluding them from search results, trends, and more.
However, the public would not necessarily know if a tweet had been moderated in this way, but that’s about to change.
“Starting soon, we will add publicly visible labels to Tweets identified as potentially violating our policies letting you know we’ve limited their visibility,” the company said.
It added that these labels bring a new level of transparency to enforcement actions by displaying which policy the Tweet potentially violates to both the Tweet author and other users on Twitter.
The microblogging website also noted that users whose tweets were labeled will be able to submit feedback if they think their tweet was incorrectly flagged, but says they may not receive a response, nor will it guarantee the tweet’s reach will be restored.
“Authors will be able to submit feedback on the label if they think we incorrectly limited their Tweet’s visibility. Currently, submitting feedback does not guarantee you will receive a response or that your Tweet’s reach will be restored,” Twitter added in the blog post.
Twitter admits that automation could mean it will get things wrong, but it plans to allow authors to appeal its decision at some point “in the future.”
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