Twitter Inc. in recent days removed a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking for specific content, according to two people familiar with the matter who said it Ordered by new owner Elon Musk.
After the story was published, Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, told JEE News in an email that “we are fixing and optimizing our indicators. They were temporarily removed when That we do.”
“We expect them back up next week,” he said.
The removal of the feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, was not previously reported. It showed at the top of search links specific to aid organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.
Its termination raised concerns about the welfare of vulnerable users on Twitter. Musk has said impressions, or views, of harmful content have been declining since taking office in October and tweeted graphs showing the downward trend, even as researchers and civil rights groups has tracked an increase in tweets with racial slurs and other hateful content. .
Due to pressure from consumer protection groups, Internet services including Twitter, Google and Facebook have for years tried to direct users to reputable resources such as government hotlines when they suspect someone is being hacked. is at risk.
In his email, Twitter’s Irwin said: “Google works really well with them in their search results and (we’re) actually reflecting some of their views in what we’re doing.”
“We know these indicators are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they work properly and stay relevant,” he added.
Erliani Abdulrahman, who was on the recently disbanded Twitter Content Advisory Group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was “deeply troubling and deeply troubling.”
Even if it was only temporarily removed to make way for improvements, “typically you’d be working on it in parallel, not to remove it,” he said.
Washington-based AIDS United, which promoted #ThereIsHelp, and iLaw, a Thai group noted for its support of free speech, both told JEE News on Friday that the feature’s disappearance was surprising to
AIDS United said a webpage linked to the Twitter feature received about 70 views a day as of December 18.
Demer Juniardo, executive director of Twitter partner Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network, tweeted about the missing feature on Friday, saying “stupid actions” by the social media service forced his organization to abandon it. can.
Sources with knowledge of Musk’s decision to order the removal of the feature declined to be named because they feared retaliation. One of them said that millions of people have been exposed to #ThereIsHelp messages.
Twitter launched some prompts about five years ago and some were available in more than 30 countries, according to tweets from the company. In a blog post about the feature, Twitter said it has a responsibility to ensure users “can access and get support from our service when they need it most.”
Alex Goldenberg, lead intelligence analyst at the non-profit network Contagion Research Institute, said the signs showing up in search results a few days ago won’t show up until Thursday.
He and colleagues published a study in August showing that monthly mentions of certain terms related to self-harm on Twitter had increased by more than 500% from about a year earlier, particularly among Age users are at risk while viewing such content.
“If this decision is a sign of a change in policy that they no longer take these issues seriously, that’s extraordinarily dangerous,” Goldenberg said. “This contradicts Musk’s previous commitments to prioritize the safety of children.”
Musk has said he wants to crack down on child sexual abuse content on Twitter and has criticized the previous ownership’s handling of the issue. But it has cut out large parts of the teams involved in dealing with potentially objectionable content.
