Twitter shares safety progress, announces future updates to reduce spam

Twitter on Wednesday released a progress report outlining how some of its updates have improved safety on the platform in the past year.

“Last year, we shared that building a Twitter free of abuse, spam and other things that distract from the public conversation is our top priority. Since then, we’ve made strides in creating a healthier service,” the company said in a blog post.

Twitter revealed that there was 16% decrease in abusive reports from users within the past year, along with a 38% increase of proactive abuse detection by the company’s security teams. This suggests that the social network was able to detect and remove harmful content even before users reported issues.

Come June, Twitter will test a feature that lets users hide replies to their tweets

“This time last year, 0% of potentially abusive content was flagged to our teams for review proactively,” the company noted.

Users suspended for creating new accounts after being initially suspended also increased by 45%, reducing the number of potential spam accounts on the platform by 100 000.

The company further noted that responses to appeals requests sped up by 60% in the past year. It also removed two-and-a-half times more private information as well. Twitter attributed these improvements to its updated in-app appeal and reporting processes, respectively.

“We’ve also expanded our teams in key areas and geographies so we can stay ahead and work quickly to keep people safe,” the company said.

Twitter will be making more improvements in the form of updating its rules and features in the coming weeks. In June, a new option for users to hide replies to their tweets will also be tested in the platform.

Feature image: Twitter