Weekly Roundup 2/7
Happy Tuesday, Readers. Last Tuesday, Twitter announced new additions to its platform in order to combat abuse and harassment from certain users. Trolls, you have been warned. These updates will work to curb accounts whose primary intent is to incite arguments with hateful or abusive language and content. These updates come after months of heavy criticism and in the wake of plummeting share values, after Salesforce and other major companies such as Disney, Google, and Apple passed up bids on the social media site.
Users can expect to see these changes fully implemented within the coming month. Some changes have already been made such as expanded options for reporting abusive tweets, which went live last week. The site has also detailed plans to offer safer search results, which “removes tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results", said Ed Ho, vice president of engineering at Twitter. In addition, Twitter intends to work on collapsing low-reply or potentially abusive replies to tweets, leaving only high quality content for the typical user to see, though you may sift through all replies if you choose. Finally, users who have been suspended or banned from the site will be prevented from creating further accounts using new identification methods.
While some wonder if these changes come too late, it is clear that Twitter is trying to create a safer, more inclusive online community. The site hopes that these changes will open up new usership and attract buyers for a potential acquisition or merge in the coming future.
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Flying Cars Are Just Two Years Away, Now Brought to You by Uber
Civic Tech:
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Help USAID Develop Responsible Data Practices for Digital Development
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