Twitter Marking Some Profiles As Having ‘Sensitive’ Content

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It looks like Twitter is very serious on fighting abuse and trolls this year. After releasing the safe search feature (and many others) aimed at taking down trolls, the social network seems to have come up with (or is testing) a new update.

Twitter marks accounts ‘sensitive’

In this new feature, the micro-blogging giant seems to mark an entire profile as “sensitive” if it contains any sensitive language or images, according to Mashable.

On Thursday, Mashable reporter clicked on the profile of Justin Warren, a tech analyst, and saw that his profile image was blocked.

The account also showed this warning message: “This profile may include potentially sensitive content.”

The account did not show any of Warren’s tweets or his image. However, the Mashable reporter was able to see the account after he agreed to continue to the profile despite the possibility of seeing sensitive language or images.

What was interesting to note was that Warren had no idea about that his account was marked sensitive.

When asked on the social network if he knew Twitter had marked his account as possibly containing sensitive content, he said, “No, I didn’t, but now I do. Probably because Americans struggle with swearing as punctuation.”

Limiting trolling and hate speech

It is not known if this update has come just now or if it has been in effect for several days. The micro-blogging giant did not reveal any information about it, so maybe it is just experimenting with it. It is not clear why Warren’s account was marked sensitive when he posts mostly technology policy-related content. A few more accounts have also been marked sensitive, notes Mashable.

Nevertheless, the move is, no doubt, part of Twitter’s latest safety push and anti-abuse efforts. Last month, the social network came up with the safe search option for desktop and Android, which hides content that could be deemed sensitive from the search results. The option is similar to Google’s SafeSearch filter, which was designed to allow people to block adult images or violent content from appearing in their search results.

“We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic. That’s put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices. We won’t tolerate it and we’re launching new efforts to stop it,” the company said in a blog post last month.

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