Skip to main content

Twitter kills off latest safety update after wave of negative feedback

Twitter is evidently listening to its community when it comes to tackling its abuse problem. The company proved that on Monday when it appraised a safety update it had released just hours earlier after the site’s users criticized it. Twitter followed up in a matter of hours by tweeting that it had taken the viewpoints on board and decided to shelve the feature.

Its original announcement declared it would no longer notify users when they were added to a list. Despite being primarily used as a way to organize feeds by interests, lists can theoretically be used to abuse or intimidate people on the site (for example, someone could add a user to a list with a derogatory title purely for the sake of harassment).

Recommended Videos

The original tweet announcing the update quickly generated negative replies, with users pointing out that list notifications were actually a useful feature.

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/831247282544599040

“Being added to a list and knowing what list you were added to was literally the last useful thing about Twitter,” tweeted reporter Anthony Quintano. “This is sweeping a problem under the rug and ruining a good feature at the same time,” he added in another tweet.

Another popular Twitter user @SwiftOnSecurity, chimed in by offering an alternative method. “The correct approach is to allow people to remove themselves from lists or do it upon blocking the owner,” responded the account, which boasts over 166,000 followers. “Critical for people to know if they’ve been added to a list intended for targets. This is blinding the vulnerable.”

.@TwitterSafety @Support Critical for people to know if they've been added to a list intended for targets. This is blinding the vulnerable.

— SwiftOnSecurity (@SwiftOnSecurity) February 13, 2017

The tweet essentially summed up the problem with the update: by removing the notifications, people wouldn’t be able to identify and block the accounts that had added them to the offensive lists in the first place. Seeing as the site’s recent set of safety updates have included improvements to its blocking feature, the measure also seemed out of tune with its efforts.

In a matter of hours, Twitter engineering vice president Ed Ho — who has championed the company’s renewed commitment to countering abuse — replied to several disgruntled users that the platform was reversing the change. And, just like that, the Twitter Safety account followed up with a tweet claiming the update was a “misstep,” and that it was “rolling [it] back.” The official account added, “we’ll keep listening.”

https://twitter.com/mrdonut/status/831276041255555074

https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/831281441082265600

Last week, the platform rolled out its strongest anti-abuse measures in months by introducing a new “safe search” tool, and hiding offensive tweets from conversations. Ho, along with CEO Jack Dorsey, previously tweeted that more updates were being readied for the weeks ahead.

Saqib Shah
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Saqib Shah is a Twitter addict and film fan with an obsessive interest in pop culture trends. In his spare time he can be…
Twitterrific shuts down after being blocked by Twitter
The Twitterrific bird.

The maker of Twitterrific, a third-party Twitter app for macOS and iOS that launched in 2007 and came to the iPhone before Twitter itself, has been left with no choice but to close it down.

In a message posted on its website on Thursday, The Iconfactory, Twitterrific's developer, said: "We are sorry to say that the app’s sudden and undignified demise is due to an unannounced and undocumented policy change by an increasingly capricious Twitter -- a Twitter that we no longer recognize as trustworthy nor want to work with any longer.”

Read more
Twitter Blue is losing Ad Free Articles and Musk’s latest tweets indicate further changes
Twitter Blue menu option on a white screen background which is on a black background.

Twitter has reportedly ended its ad-free articles perk that it offered to Twitter Blue subscribers.

On Tuesday, 9to5Mac reported that Twitter has terminated a Twitter Blue feature known as "Ad-Free Articles." The feature allowed Twitter Blue subscribers to read articles without ads from participating publishers. The cancellation of Ad-Free Articles was apparently announced via an email sent to those publishers.

Read more
Elon Musk now Twitter CEO after firing entire board
Elon Musk.

Twitter staff appear to be in for a roller coaster ride following the takeover of the company by billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk. If they keep their job, that is.

We already know that after gaining control of the company late last week in a deal worth $44 billion, Musk wasted little time in booting out Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and the company's chief financial officer, Ned Segal.

Read more