Twitter's new ‘visibility’ rule prioritises freedom of speech over reach
The new policy includes a feature that displays which policy a tweet may have potentially violated.
Twitter made an announcement on Monday regarding a new policy on “visibility” for tweets that are deemed to potentially violate the platform's policies. The company emphasised that it is prioritising freedom of speech but not necessarily “reach” meaning that tweets that violate policies may still be accessible on the platform, but with limited visibility.
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The platform stated that its new "visibility filtering” policy will take a new approach beyond the traditional "leave up versus take down" method of content moderation. In order to limit the visibility of tweets, Twitter will also add “publicly visible labels”.
"We also believe it is our responsibility to keep users on our platform safe from content violating our rules. These beliefs are the foundation of freedom of speech, not freedom of reach -- our enforcement philosophy which means, where appropriate, restricting the reach of tweets that violate our policies by making the content less discoverable," the firm said.
The sample screenshots shared by Twitter demonstrated how the visibility of a tweet that may breach the microblogging site's rule against hateful conduct is restricted.
The new policy includes a feature that displays which policy a tweet may have potentially violated, providing greater transparency to both the tweet's author and other users on the platform. This move is expected to enhance transparency and accountability for content moderation enforcement of the company.
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Referring to the policy, Twitter also said that tweets with the "public visibility" label will have their reach restricted and will be made less discoverable on the platform. Furthermore, no ads will be placed adjacent to these tweets with the label.
Additionally, users can provide feedback on the label if they believe that Twitter has erroneously restricted their tweet's visibility. Currently, submitting feedback does not guarantee the user will receive a response or that their Tweet’s reach will be restored.
Twitter also said that they are working on allowing authors to appeal their decision.
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