In a blog post on Monday, Twitter announced its new policy to hide tweets that violate its rules on “hate speech” behind a warning screen that requires a click-through, rather than simply taking them down. This approach is intended to provide moderators with more choices beyond a binary “leave up versus take down” approach, according to the platform.
The offending tweets will not appear in search results, trends, or “recommended” screens, and advertising will not be shown near them.
This policy aligns with Twitter’s “commitment to transparency” by bringing the once-secretive practice of deboosting, a key part of shadow-banning, out into the open.
The new policy embodies the “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” paradigm that Elon Musk first teased after acquiring Twitter in November, promising that “negative/hate tweets” would be “max deboosted & demonetized,” unlinked to ads, and excluded from all but the most specific search results.
The platform plans to expand the warning labels to other policy areas in the coming months, and users will be able to provide feedback on the label if they disagree with Twitter’s actions.
While Twitter’s new policy was designed to be more proportional and transparent, it faced criticism for its “enforcement actions” against Substack users earlier this month.
Twitter deboosted tweets containing Substack links and disabled replies, causing prominent Substack users to leave the platform.
Elon Musk, who had previously promised to liberate Twitter from corporate state censors, has now offered users the chance to monetize their content and keep all the money they earn in the first year.
