Content quality is supposedly a priority for San Francisco’s famous microblog. Initially pushed by the European governments, it was kindly invited to keep a close watch on “dangerous” tweets containing incitements to violence or hate. And in a further attempt to maintain digital composure, the social network is working hard on clearing the timeline from the words of “trolls” and “haters”.
The moderating functions, as we reported earlier in the year are coming in June, and will allow users to hide replies. According to the social network, people starting quality conversations are a precious asset and they deserve some power or control over the conversations they start. The hidden “hate” would still be there though, with the possibility of being expanded and red using a ‘view hidden tweets’ option.
Furthermore, as part of a larger plan to limit trolling and improve user experience, the social network has promised continuous efforts to improve its technology for content revision and, especially when it comes to people’s safety, to develop easy ways to share specific information.
Not a lot of comments have been made so far by the platform’s hardcore users. The population of the web though has been used to a great degree of freedom since the beginning of times, and many would consider giving up on this freedom as an antithesis to the Web’s philosophy.
Hiding replies to the tweets could be seen in a similar way as turning off YouTube’s comments: an embarrassing maneuver, aimed at avoiding responsibility.
Furthermore, these forms of censorship could be misused by people of power to polish conversations, and deliver propaganda instead.
Although on one side Twitter has been a favorite theater among haters so far, on the other side the ‘hide reply’ features could somewhat allow specific conversations to be biased, at least for the casual reader.
After all, the right to freedom of speech or (what is left of it) is a hard gained right as it is the right to be open to different views when these are expressed in a civil manner).
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