Twitter Issues ‘Safety Calendar’ to Combat Hate Speech, Abuse

“We see voices being silenced everyday; we’ve been working to counteract this for the past 2 years,” tweeted the CEO

Twitter has rolled out a new safety calendar that describes upcoming changes to the company’s rules towards hate speech and abuse.

(Photo Courtesy: iStock; Wikimedia Commons)

In a bid to make its platform a safer place, Twitter has rolled out a new safety calendar that describes upcoming changes to the company's rules towards hate speech and abuse.

The calendar also includes information on how Twitter communicates with people who violate the rules and how its enforcement process works.

Twitter, which has 328 million users, has been under intense scrutiny for allowing abusive and hateful posts on its platform.

In a tweet sent out by Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey last week, Dorsey had said:

In the same thread, Dorsey had admitted that “updating (Twitter’s) policies and increasing the size of (our) teams” had not been enough – and that Twitter was, therefore, going to introduce some new changes:

Following up on his declaration, Twitter published a blog on 19 October 2017, stating:

As <a href="https://twitter.com/jack/status/919028949434241024">we said</a> last week, we’re updating our approach to make Twitter a safer place. This won’t be a quick or easy fix, but we’re committed to getting it right. Far too often in the past we’ve said we’d do better and promised transparency but have fallen short in our efforts. Starting today, you can expect regular, real-time updates about our progress.

<a href="https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2017/safetycalendar.html">Twitter Blog Post</a>

The information includes suspending accounts of violent groups, along with not letting people have abusive or hateful usernames.

The micro-blogging platform reiterated that it will update the way it reviews reports from people who witness rule violations.

Here’s what the calendar of upcoming changes that Twitter intends to make, looks like:

A screenshot of Twitter’s calendar.(Photo Courtesy: blog.twitter.com)

A screenshot of Twitter’s calendar.(Photo Courtesy: blog.twitter.com)

Last week, in an internal email, Twitter's head of safety policy has emailed members of its Trust and Safety Council on new rules to promote free speech and curb violence and sexual harassment.

(With inputs from IANS)