Twitter Limits Reach of Over 700,000 Tweets Violating Its Policy
Twitter has released an update on the effectiveness of its moderation approach called “Freedom of Speech Not Reach,” and the company claims to have observed positive outcomes. In April, Twitter initiated a measure to restrict the reach of tweets that violate its policy on hateful conduct, accompanied by a label stating, “Visibility limited: this tweet may violate Twitter’s rules against hateful conduct.” It appears that Twitter has applied this label to over 700,000 posts since its implementation and has taken proactive steps to prevent advertisements from appearing alongside such content.
The company also said the label reduces the reach of messages by 81 percent, effectively limiting the visibility of messages that may contain hateful activity. In addition, Twitter revealed in its update that more than a third of users choose to delete tagged Tweets themselves after being notified that they violated the website’s policies, and only four percent of authors have complained about the tags.
The company charging for API access means that most hate speech researchers cannot independently verify these claims. But Twitter clearly argues that its approach has been effective so far. In fact, the website is implementing its plan to expand its tags to include more policy violations. According to its announcement, it will also stigmatize and demote posts that violate its policies on offensive behavior and violent speech. Tweets that will be flagged in the coming weeks include messages that contain harmful content that targets individuals, messages that encourage others to harass an individual or group of people, tweets that threaten to cause physical harm to others, and tweets that encourage others to commit violent acts. or harm.
We remain committed to maintaining free speech on Twitter, while equally maintaining the health of our platform. Today, more than 99.99% of Tweet impressions are from healthy content, or content that does not violate our rules.
Read more about our progress on our enforcement…
— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) July 12, 2023
