Twitter testing new feature that advises users to rethink ‘harmful’ tweets
I’ve heard tell that people still sometimes use Twitter for other things, but without harmful tweets and complaints about harmful tweets, what’s left? I’m only half kidding when I ask that.
I don’t use Twitter all that much anymore, but whenever I’m there I’m struck by how much less fun it is now than it was ten years ago. Even then it wasn’t perfect, but there were all these little communities of people you could get sucked into that all seemed to genuinely like or at least care enough to be decent to each other. Now? You might stumble into the odd conversation, but I find it’s just a tweet or two and done, nothing like it used to be. All of the people that used to be so open and entertaining seem to be giving up. I don’t know what exactly ruined it or when it started (the Trump era certainly did it no favours), but it’s definitely happening.
Twitter is testing a new feature that warns users before they post a tweet that may include harmful language.
The social media giant is currently testing the feature with a select number of iOS users. Twitter says that the pop-up prompt is supposed to give users the option to revise their reply before they post it.
It’s unclear what Twitter constitutes as “harmful” content, but it is likely similar to what the platform thinks is considered hate speech, abuse, and harassment, which is all outlined in its policies.
It has got to the point where there are bots scouring Twitter for anything that people say that they disagree with and then banning them. So for example, I made some tweet about somebody should kill themselves because they voted for Trump. I made that tweet five years ago. I got locked out of Twitter a few months back for that tweet. Similarly, Allen made some tweet about something or other that I can’t remember, it was obviously a joke though. And he was locked out as well. Apparently the fun police have taken over. That’s part of the problem.
It’s weird it took them so long to suspend you for that. But in fairness, no matter how you know or I know that you might have meant it, you’ve got to be really careful about telling someone to kill themselves on a public platform. I can understand why they might bring down the ban hammer in a case like this, but it’s also part of the reason why trying to police social media the way that governments want it done can never work. Bots and even a lot of people can’t distinguish satire from something genuine.