Twitter to use ‘behaviour-based signals’ to improve user experience

U.S.-based microblogging giant Twitter has announced to implement “behaviour-based signals” to organize and present tweets to users.

The goal is to improve the healthy of conversations taking place on the platform, while simultaneously tackling the problem of Twitter trolls.

In a media release, the company said that it is paying attention to signals like accounts without confirmed email addresses, multiple accounts linked to a single identity, as well as “behaviour that might indicate a coordinated attack.”

In order to address accounts that get reported — but that typically don’t end up getting banned — Twitter plans on hiding tweets that detract from what the company calls “the health of the conversation.”

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/996421373902905344

“Now, we’re tackling issues of behaviours that distort and detract from the public conversation in those areas by integrating new behavioural signals into how Tweets are presented,” reads an excerpt from the same May 15th media release, attributed to vice president of trust and safety Del Harvey and group product manager David Gasca.

“By using new tools to address this conduct from a behavioural perspective, we’re able to improve the health of the conversation, and everyone’s experience on Twitter, without waiting for people who use Twitter to report potential issues to us.”

Twitter specified that users will still be able to view content that doesn’t technically violate Twitter’s policies by clicking on the “Show more replies” button. In addition, Twitter said that “less than one percent of accounts make up the majority of accounts reported for abuse, but a lot of what’s reported does not violate our rules.”

According to Twitter, the company has witnessed a four percent drop in abuse reports from search and an eight percent drop in abuse reports from conversations, as a result of early signal testing in its global markets.

Harvey and Gasca also specified that these behavioural tools are only a part of the content curation work undertaken by the company.

“There will be false positives and things that we miss; our goal is to learn fast and make our processes and tools smarter,” said Harvey and Gasca. “We’ll continue to be open and honest about the mistakes we make and the progress we are making.”

Source: Twitter