Twitter restores suicide prevention feature after protests
SUBSCRIBE
JOBS
Go Back
1 year ago 06:00:05am Television

Twitter restores suicide prevention feature after protests

New Delhi, 01-April-2023, By IBW Team

twitter

Twitter Inc restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from some users and consumer safety groups over its removal.

Reuters had reported on Friday that the feature was taken down a few days ago, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said the removal was ordered by the social media platform’s owner Elon Musk.

After publication of the story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. “We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that,” Irwin said in an email to Reuters.

“We expect to have them back up next week,” she said.

About 15 hours after the initial report, Musk, who did not initially respond to requests for comment, tweeted “False, it is still there.” In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.”

The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It listed contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression, a Reuters report stated.

Its elimination had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.

In part due to pressure from consumer safety groups, internet services, including Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers such as government hotlines when they suspect someone may be in danger of harming themselves or others.

In her email, Twitter’s Irwin said, “Google does really well with these in their search results and (we) are actually mirroring some of their approach with the changes we are making.”

She added, “We know these prompts are useful in many cases and just want to make sure they are functioning properly and continue to be relevant.”


Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

Our Events

  • img
    SatCab Symposium

    SatCab symposium organized by Aavishkar Media Group is an annual event. It's a well-informed event where we have a panel discussion on the current affairs and future forecasting on our industry.

  • img
    BCS
    Ratna Awards

    BCS Ratna Award organized by Aavishkar Media Group is an annual event. In this award function, a community of our industry is honored by receiving the award for the contribution of their work.

  • img
    Chetna Yatra

    Chetna Yatra organized by Aavishkar Media Group is an annual event. Held by Dr. AK Rastogi, Chairman of Aavishkar Media Group. Pilgrimage India in his car for connecting the people of our industry.

  • img
    Imaan India Sammaan

    Imaan India Samman is an event mobilized by Aavishkar Media Group, which was launched in 2012. Giving the award to the NGOs for giving their contribution to society.

Youtube Videos