Twitter’s announcement of the new Safety Mode has been a long time coming. The company has suffered from a history of harassment and abuse on its social media platform.
In 2018, Twitter’s co-founder was even asked by the US Congress why it took the company over five hours to take down a threatening tweet aimed at Meghan McCain.
But in its February 2021 announcement, it did not reveal too much about the new feature. However, Twitter did include some of the ways the new Safety Mode will help prevent harassment.
What Is Safety Mode About?
Announced in Twitter’s February 2021 Analyst Day presentation, alongside other upcoming Twitter features such as Super Follow and Communities, Safety Mode seeks to improve user safety on the platform by hiding potentially harmful content.
The feature will be a toggle you can turn on, so it will be optional for users.
How Will Twitter’s New Safety Mode Help Prevent Harassment?
According to one of the slides in the Analyst Day presentation, the new feature will “automatically block accounts that appear to break Twitter Rules, and mute accounts that might be using insults, name-calling, strong language, or hateful remarks”.
With Safety Mode on, Twitter will automatically detect accounts that “might be acting abusive or spammy”, and “limit the ability of those accounts to engage with you for seven days”.
According to the Safety Mode slide, Twitter will also send you a notification to your phone whenever your tweet gets negative attention in the form of abusive or spammy replies.
A Hard-Fought Battle Against Harassment
Twitter’s battle to curb harassment on its platform has been a long one. Since 2018, it has introduced several features to help reduce offensive content such as letting users hide replies and controlling who can reply to an individual tweet.
The company has also introduced moderation algorithms that it claims detects over 50% of abusive tweets before users even report them.
While Twitter did not release a date for when it plans to roll out Safety Mode, it seems to be its next attempt at curtailing abusive or hateful behavior on its platform.