Twitter restores the suicide-prevention feature
Following pressure from certain users and consumer safety organizations over its removal, Twitter Inc. has reinstated a feature that provides suicide prevention helplines and other safety options to users seeking specific material.
According to Reuters’ report on Friday, Elon Musk had instructed the company to remove the safety measure earlier in the week. Ella Irwin, Twitter’s head of trust and safety, acknowledged the removal after the publication of the piece but stated that it was only temporary.
She noted, “We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that. We expect to have them back up next week.”
Musk refuted claims that Twitter had ever deleted the suicide prevention feature on Saturday morning. He tweeted, “The message is actually still up. This is fake news. Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.”
Irwin told Reuters that going ahead, Twitter intends to follow Google’s lead. She claimed that Google “does really well with these in their search results and [we] are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making. Google provides highly relevant message prompts based on search terms, they are always current and are optimized appropriately for both mobile and web.”
The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, places a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It has listed contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters, and freedom of expression.
By Saturday, the banner returned to searches about suicide and domestic violence in multiple countries under terms like “shtwt,” shorthand for “self-harm Twitter.” It was unclear if the feature had been reinstated for other categories.
Some search terms that Twitter had previously claimed to have activated the features as “#HIV”—were not working. Although consumer safety organizations have criticized the company for permitting tweets that they claim violate the guidelines, Twitter prohibits users from promoting self-harm.
Even though it was only temporary, the #ThereIsHelp banner’s absence prompted some proponents of consumer protection to criticize Twitter. Some consumer safety organizations and Twitter users expressed concern for the safety of the network’s most vulnerable users after #ThereIsHelp vanished from the platform.
Internet firms like Twitter, Alphabet’s Google, and Meta’s Facebook have sought for years to point users to reputable resource providers for safety issues, in part as a result of pressure from these organizations. Former Trust and Safety council member Eirliani Abdul Rahman told Reuters that she found the incident very uncomfortable and terribly disturbing. Rahman added that businesses often develop safety features “in parallel,” keeping the ones that are currently in use before replacing them.
Despite the fact that researchers and civil rights organizations have observed an increase in tweets containing racist remarks and other hateful content, Musk has previously claimed that appearances, or views, of harmful content, have decreased since he took control of the firm in October and has tweeted charts demonstrating a downward trend.
Additionally, the entrepreneur has stated he wants to fight child abuse pictures on Twitter and has condemned how the former owner handled the situation. However, he has significantly reduced the staff responsible for handling potentially offensive material.
I am a law graduate from NLU Lucknow. I have a flair for creative writing and hence in my free time work as a freelance content writer.
