In this article, I will tell you about Twitter’s hatred policy. Twitter may have a more lenient attitude towards bans with Elon Musk at the helm, however, it will still take steps to flag any content that does not comply with its rules. Going forward, the social media platform will add labels to tweets it perceives as infringing its Hateful Conduct policy, which will have the effect of reducing the visibility of the posts in question and allowing users to read more about why this is happening.
These labels will cover an increasing range of policy violations as time goes on. Those who feel the label was applied erroneously are encouraged to leave feedback, though they won’t be able to officially appeal decisions just yet. Twitter has made it clear that this action will only be applied to individual tweets, and not the whole account.
The ‘freedom of speech, not freedom of reach’ concept introduced by Musk reflects Twitter’s preference to curtail offensive content without the necessity of a complete ban. Theoretically, this helps stop controversial content from proliferating while still permitting users to be active on the platform.
Additionally, this tactic aims to quell worries of ‘shadow bans’ where the visibility of certain posts is greatly reduced without the person’s knowledge. Despite lifting former President Trump’s ban and also temporarily suspending Kanye West in November, Twitter has still had to resort to this technique in the past.
Advocacy groups have claimed that Twitter does not do enough to safeguard those who are subjected to hatred and discrimination on the platform, however, this action might not completely satisfy their demands. Bannings will still occur when appropriate or legally required, though the consequences will be more lenient than before.
On the other hand, companies that had decided to take their advertising off the platform due to the fear of their ads being shown alongside questionable content may not be satisfied either. Though this will assuage any suspicions of censorship, labels being added to posts could damage the reputation of the tweets and therefore affect their perceived worth of them.
