Nieman Foundation at Harvard
HOME
          
LATEST STORY
Beehiiv is the latest platform to try to lure independent journalists with perks
ABOUT                    SUBSCRIBE
May 6, 2021, 1:03 p.m.
Audience & Social
LINK:   ➚   |   Posted by: Hanaa' Tameez   |   May 6, 2021

Twitter is rolling out a new feature that prompts users to revise their tweet replies if the language in them can be considered offensive (the algorithm aims to detect “insults, strong language, or hateful remarks”).

Twitter has made several moves over the last year to improve safety on the platform and curb misinformation. What’s exciting, or at the least a cause for optimism, is that in experiments last year, Twitter says 34% of users who saw the prompt revised their initial replies or decided to not send the tweet at all. Then, after seeing the prompt, people wrote 11% fewer offensive replies.

For now, the feature will only be available to Twitter users who use the platform in English on both iOS and Android devices. It stops short of preventing someone from sending an offensive or harmful reply all together.

“We’ll continue to explore how prompts — such as reply prompts and article prompts — and other forms of intervention can encourage healthier conversations on Twitter,” the official announcement said. “Our teams will also collect feedback from people on Twitter who have received reply prompts as we expand this feature to other languages.”

Show tags
 
Join the 60,000 who get the freshest future-of-journalism news in our daily email.
Beehiiv is the latest platform to try to lure independent journalists with perks
These types of programs are likely to continue to come and go, as the needs of journalists and the platforms’ businesses evolve.
That time Rupert Murdoch endorsed Jimmy Carter (no, really)
It was the first time many Americans saw Rupert Murdoch using his news outlets to advance his interests — and a lesson in how a media mogul’s outside financial ties can taint the editorial product.
GBH tried to sell the home of a legendary radio station. It kicked off a proxy war for the soul of audio.
“Woods Hole tends to be pretty passionate about things, and when people get startled they get angry.”