Bad news for all you bad Twitter users out there … Jack Dorsey & Co. are coming. The company announced on Tuesday that it is rolling out a feature that will minimize how often users see “bad” tweets. Using a set of signals, the platform will now determine if an account, while not violating Twitter’s terms of service, is using “behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation.” If Twitter determines an account is doing this, that account’s tweets will be harder for other users to find. (Twitter says all tweets that don’t violate its TOS will remain on the platform, but will be available if you click on “Show more replies” or choose to see everything in your search setting.)
From Twitter:
There are many new signals we’re taking in, most of which are not visible externally. Just a few examples include if an account has not confirmed their email address, if the same person signs up for multiple accounts simultaneously, accounts that repeatedly Tweet and mention accounts that don’t follow them, or behavior that might indicate a coordinated attack. We’re also looking at how accounts are connected to those that violate our rules and how they interact with each other.
Twitter says in tests it found that the new feature decreased abuse reports by 8 percent for conversations and 4 percent for search. Which, great, who isn’t down with decreasing abuse on a platform best known for just that. [Blinks nervously and casually ignores the Twitter users sharpening their pitchforks to raise hell about Twitter’s latest attempt to censor users.]
