On Wednesday, Twitter released a new feature that aims to detect offensive tweets before posted by a user.
The new feature causes an automatic prompt to pop up that says, “Want to review this before Tweeting?” The user is then presented with three choices: tweet, edit, or delete (NPR). According to Twitter, “We began testing prompts last year that encouraged people to pause and reconsider a potentially harmful or offensive reply — such as insults, strong language, or hateful remarks — before Tweeting it.
Once prompted, people had an opportunity to take a moment and make edits, delete, or send the reply as is.” Currently, the new feature is being rolled out to iOS and Android users with English language settings enabled.
After a year of testing, Twitter learned that if prompted, 34% of people revised their initial reply or decided to not send their reply at all. After being prompted once, people composed, on average, 11% fewer offensive replies in the future, and that users were less likely to post “harmful” tweets when prompted.
According to USA Today, “These tests ultimately resulted in people sending less potentially offensive replies across the service, and improved behavior on Twitter,” the company said, adding that the prompts tests allowed its algorithms to detect the difference between “potentially offensive language, sarcasm, and friendly banter.”