Twitter pilots new feature to help users police platform

Social media giant Twitter is teasing a new feature that will allow users to add specifically tailored content warnings to individual tweets, in the latest move for users to police their own platform under new CEO Parag Agrawal.

Twitter users will be able to hide their tweets behind individualized content warnings going forward, a tweet by company account @TwitterSafety announced on Wednesday.

People use Twitter to discuss what’s happening in the world, which sometimes means sharing unsettling or sensitive content. We’re testing an option for some of you to add one-time warnings to photos and videos you Tweet out, to help those who might want the warning. pic.twitter.com/LCUA5QCoOV

— Twitter Safety (@TwitterSafety) December 7, 2021

The platform already allows users to add content warnings to all their tweets at once, and the new feature is billed as bringing nuance to the system. Going forward, users will be able to tag single tweets with warnings and specifically categorize those warnings. They’ll be able to flag posts as “nudity,” “violence,” or “sensitive,” and users viewing the poster’s feed will see the image blurred out until they click through the warning, similar to the “disinformation” warnings seen on offending posts on Facebook.

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It’s not Twitter’s first move into encouraging users to police themselves. The company announced on Tuesday that it was working on a “human-first” reporting process, meaning that rather than asking a user who reports a tweet what rules the post is breaking, the user will be asked to describe what happened leading up to the reporting process. Based on that disclosure, Twitter will apply – or not apply, as the case may be – a specific violation.

The user will also have the option of subjecting all their tweets to a blanket warning. The latest feature is not available to all users yet, though it will reportedly be rolled out to a “wider audience” in 2022.

Recently appointed CEO Agrawal has wasted no time in reorganizing the company, structuring it under four key pillars rather than having all functions report to the chief executive. The aim is to speed up Twitter’s functioning, founder Jack Dorsey’s replacement explained.