Twitter has announced that it will restrict the visibility of tweets that violate its policies, as part of a policy update aimed at keeping users safe from harmful content. The social media platform said that while users have the right to express their opinions and ideas freely, they do not have the right to reach a large audience if their content violates Twitter’s rules.
The company plans to apply a visibility filter to tweets that breach its rules on hateful conduct, with the intention of expanding the filter to cover other policy areas later on. The move is part of Twitter’s “enforcement philosophy”, which involves restricting the reach of tweets that violate its policies.
“Restricting the reach of tweets, also known as visibility filtering, is one of our existing enforcement actions that allows us to move beyond the binary ‘leave up versus take down’ approach to content moderation,” the company said in a statement. “However, like other social platforms, we have not historically been transparent when we’ve taken this action.”
Twitter said that it will not place ads next to content that has been labelled under the new rule, and that it will add publicly visible labels to tweets that are potentially in breach of its policies. Authors will be able to submit feedback on the label if they believe their tweet’s visibility has been limited incorrectly, although the company warned that submitting feedback does not guarantee a response or restoration of the tweet’s reach.
The move by Twitter has been welcomed by some commentators, who see it as a step towards greater accountability and transparency in social media content moderation. Others, however, have expressed concern that the visibility filter could be used to suppress legitimate speech and silence minority voices.
Twitter’s decision comes amid growing scrutiny of the role that social media platforms play in shaping public opinion and discourse. Critics have accused companies such as Twitter and Facebook of failing to address harmful content effectively, and of allowing their algorithms to amplify divisive and extreme views. The move by Twitter to restrict the visibility of tweets that violate its policies is one of several measures being taken by social media platforms to address these concerns, although it remains to be seen whether it will be effective in curbing harmful content.