Twitter Adds Labels to Tweets, Skips Censoring

Twitter will allow more tweets to stay up on the social media website with a warning attached.

Twitter said on April 17 that it will begin labeling tweets that are offensive, but does not plan to remove them.

The social media company has been criticized for allowing hateful, racist and offensive tweets to remain, drawing ire from users of the platform.

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Twitter said it would increase the amount of transparency for tweets that have violated its rules. 

"We’re adding more transparency to the enforcement actions we take on Tweets," the company tweeted. "As a first step, soon you’ll start to see labels on some Tweets identified as potentially violating our rules around Hateful Conduct letting you know that we’ve limited their visibility.

The labels could state that a tweet violated the company's "rules against hateful conduct, Twitter wrote in a blog post.

Twitter said slapping labels on tweets without removing them would "bring a new level of transparency to enforcement actions by displaying which policy the Tweet potentially violates to both the Tweet author and other users on Twitter," according to its blog post. 

The social media company said tweets that carry the labels would not be found as easily and ads would not be placed "adjacent to content that we label." 

Advertisers have been unhappy with the recent changes made to Twitter and have fled in droves, fed up with the problems that multiplied after Elon Musk acquired Twitter on Oct. 27. Musk, who had never run a social media company before the acquisition, removed the safeguards limiting the spread of misinformation, racism and antisemitism as well as hateful content on Twitter.

No other restrictions will be made to the accounts of users who post tweets that are deemed to be in violation, Twitter said.

Twitter said it would limit the reach of tweets, also known as "visibility filtering," as part of its strategy to moderate content and allow freedom of speech.

"These actions will be taken at a tweet level only and will not affect a user’s account," the company said. "Restricting the reach of Tweets helps reduce binary 'leave up versus take down' content moderation decisions and supports our freedom of speech vs freedom of reach approach."

Twitter promised it would delete tweets that are found to contain "illegal content and suspend bad actors from our platform."

Users can appeal decisions made by Twitter.

"We may get it wrong occasionally, so authors will be able to submit feedback on the label if they think we incorrectly limited their content’s visibility," Twitter said. "In the future, we plan to allow authors to appeal our decision to limit a Tweet’s visibility."

Users have complained in the past about their tweets being restricted, resulting in fewer people being able to view them.

Akanksha Parmar said that the number of views of her tweets have fallen since April 2.

"And what will be done about those accounts which do not write hateful but why their reach is being downgraded," she tweeted. "The reach of my account is completely down since 2nd April and no support is being provided by Twitter. please take care of my issue."

Moderation Change Last Fall

Musk's takeover of Twitter last year faced controversy immediately as the number of racist comments spiked exponentially, including the use of the N-word.

Racists and trolls flooded Twitter, the social media company, since the company was taken private by Musk, testing whether the CEO of Tesla would stand by his claim of being a "free speech absolutist."

The number of trolls using the N-word on Twitter rose by 500% within 12 hours after the $44 billion deal was finalized, according to a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute, a group which researches social media content to determine threats that could materialize.

Accounts tweeting hate speech ranging from slurs against Black people to anti-Semitism surged immediately on Oct. 27, the day before the billionaire took over Twitter.

Musk decided to allow former President Donald Trump back on the platform although the 45th president chose to use Truth Social, operated by his own company, Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG). Digital World Acquisition Corp  (DWAC)  , the blank check company has been attempting to merge with Trump's fledgling media group. This laissez-faire approach is part of Musk's defense of free speech. But his strategy has transformed Twitter into a bastion for conservatives, who come together to denounce what Musk has described as the woke mind virus. This expression is a catch-all for progressive values.

Twitter Users' Reaction

One Twitter user, "The PC Doc," is a not a fan of the latest change.

"Elon working overtime to make this place the worst it can possibly be," he tweeted.

Another Twitter user, "R3ap3r," said the latest move by Twitter is "an arbitrary definition of what’s considered “speech I don’t like.” This is a gaffe and not in the best interests of the user base as a whole. Twitter’s mood swings are giving me whiplash.

Some users welcomed the change made by Twitter.

Jeremiah Bonds said he agreed with the latest change, stating "I like this move, but it's dependant on what qualifies as hate speech. People's sensitivity levels are at an all time high and get triggered for things if it rubs them the wrong way, not even if it's actually hateful."