As part of Twitter‘s efforts to make its platform a safer place for its users, the company is continuously updating its safety settings. One of these updates is a new feature that allows users to see hide abusive Tweets in search and replies.
The new feature uses machine learning to filter out “sensitive content,” and is currently only available on the desktop version of Twitter. It will be also available on Twitter’s iOS and Android apps within the next few weeks. The new safe search feature is automatically enabled, but users can also disable it in their search settings.
To access it, just make a search and click on the overflow menu (three dots) on top of the search results page. There, you can find a new “search settings” option to enable or disable safe search.
Additional to the above, Twitter will be also filtering low quality or abusive replies from Twitter conversations. As such, users won’t be seeing sensitive content in replies, especially if it’s not relevant to the conversation thread. They can however still see these replies, by picking the relevant “show less relevant replies” option at the bottom of the conversation thread.
Up until now, Twitter’s efforts to make the platform safer for users have centred around reporting features. Now, Twitter is moving to a more automated approach, using an algorithm to filter out abuse. Careful not to be accused of censorship though, Twitter is not actually deleting sensitive content. It is just hiding it, clearing up conversations, so that they are safer and less tiresome for users.
Twitter’s VP of Engineering, Ed Ho, said that
[quote]While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer.[/quote]
Ho also announced that the company is working hard on stopping the creation of new abusive accounts by
[quote]taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts. This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.[/quote]
Well done Twitter! Keep it up!
You might also like
More from Twitter
Twitter Makes It Harder To Switch To Reverse-Chronological Feed
Twitter has made it harder to switch between the Latest and Home feeds in the app, with the algorithm-based feed …
Twitter Unveils New Monetization Tracking Dashboard For Creators
Twitter recently unveiled a new Creator Dashboard to help creators make the shift into monetized content creation.
Twitter Is Working On A New Podcast Discovery Tab
User reports show a new podcast discovery button placed within the sidebar menu and the lower navigation panel of the …
Twitter Expands Birdwatch Access To More Test Users
Twitter has announced updates for its Birdwatch crowdsourced fact-checking program, and a new testing group of random US users.
Twitter Rolls Out New Bot Labels To Identify Good Bot Accounts
Developers can take part in the initiative and identify their accounts as bots, displaying a label on their profiles and …
Twitter Expands Beta Access To ‘Safety Mode’ Anti-Abuse Tool
The tool, which automatically blocks abusive accounts for seven days, has been extended to users in a number of English-speaking …
Twitter Adds Three New Payment Options To Tip Creators
Twitter is adding three more payment methods to tip creators in Africa and India, as well as adding support for …
Twitter Tests Option To DM Users Right From Their Tweets
Twitter is testing a new DM button with some iOS users that will allow them to DM a Tweet author …
Twitter Is Working On A Feature That Lets You Tweet Select Users Only
Twitter may soon be launching Flock, a feature that allows users to select a group of up to 150 close …
