Twitter trials 'safety mode' to crack down on online harassment
It will automatically block accounts that are flagged as the source of harmful language or sending uninvited replies
Twitter is experimenting with a new feature it hopes will help handle abuse on the platform.
The company previewed 'Safety Mode' earlier this year, and is now rolling it out to a small feedback group of about 1,000 English language users, with an emphasis on members of marginalised communities and female journalists.
Safety Mode will automatically block accounts for seven days if the system flags them as the source of harmful language or sending repetitive, uninvited replies and mentions.
Blocked accounts will be unable to send direct messages to the user for one week, view their tweets or follow the account.
"When the feature is turned on in your Settings, our systems will assess the likelihood of a negative engagement by considering both the Tweet's content and the relationship between the Tweet author and replier," Twitter Product Lead Jarrod Doherty said in a blog post.
Doherty added that the feature will not autoblock accounts that the user follows or frequently interacts with. Users can views the details of all blocked accounts at any time and undo faulty autoblocks (as the feature is still in development and likely to make mistakes).
Twitter says it consulted with several experts in online safety, mental health, and human rights when designing Safety Mode. These experts also helped to nominate members of the feedback group.
"We'll observe how safety mode is working and incorporate improvements and adjustments before bringing it to everyone on Twitter," Doherty said.
In July, Twitter permanently suspended 56 accounts over abusive tweets directed at three members of the England national football team, in the wake of their missed penalties in England's Euro 2020 match with Italy.
England's defeat in the match led to a flood of abusive and racist posts on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
Twitter and Facebook condemned the posts as "abhorrent", saying they had removed thousands of such posts from their platforms.
In 2019, Twitter said it had detected and removed more than 50 per cent of abusive posts before they were flagged by users.
Earlier this year, Twitter launched a new pilot programme, called Twitter Birdwatch, as part of the efforts to address misleading information on the platform.
Like Safety Mode, the community-based feature is being tested by a limited number of users - all in the USA. It allows them to identify misleading information in tweets and add notes for informative context about the topic of the tweet.
Twitter said it hopes to build a 'Birdwatchers' community that will eventually help to moderate tweets on the platform.