Like many other social media platforms at the minute, Twitter has been on a bit of a roll when it comes to releasing features to help its users feel safer. The micro-blogging platform has now revealed its newest, and possibly most assertive safety feature yet: Safety Mode.
Twitter’s a safe(r) space
A feature with the name ‘Safety Mode’ doesn’t sound all that threatening to would-be harassers, but in practice, it seems like it has a lot of firepower. According to Twitter’s official announcement, the feature will temporarily block accounts for a week if it catches them using “harmful language”, or if it notices them repeatedly sending “uninvited replies or mentions”.
If you choose to turn the feature on for your account, Twitter will examine Tweets, replies, and mentions relevant to your account, and will autoblock any accounts that fall in line with the previously mentioned red flags: hateful language or repetitive mentions and replies. This means they’ll be unable to follow you, send you messages, or see your Tweets.
Safety Mode’s systems also take into account your account’s “existing relationships” with others, so it won’t consider repetitive messages from, say, a close friend you interact with regularly as an indicator of potential harassment.
Twitter does acknowledge that there’s some room for error with this feature, so you’ll be notified whenever Safety Mode autoblocks an account. You’ll then be able to review the reasons why, and also manually disable the autoblock via your Settings.
Furthermore, the feature isn’t getting a full-fledged release just yet. Twitter presumably still has some kinks to iron out. Safety Mode is currently available to “a small feedback group on iOS, Android, and Twitter.com, beginning with accounts that have English-language settings enabled.”
