Twitter is boasting of its success in banning so-called “trolls” ahead of its earnings report on Thursday 27 July.
In a recent update on the company’s official blog, Twitter announced it is now taking action on ten times the number of “abusive” accounts today compared to one year ago.
We promised to do more with our technology. We’re now taking action on 10x the number of abusive accounts every day compared to the same time last year. We also now limit account functionality or place suspensions on thousands more abusive accounts each day.
Twitter also boasted that it has altered the behavior of its users through punishment.
Communication about problematic Tweets, especially to the people who send them, is key. Accounts that demonstrate abusive behavior are now limited for a time, and told why. Accounts that we put into this period of limited functionality generate 25% fewer abuse reports, and approximately 65% of these accounts are in this state just once.
Twitter, which long ago boasted of being the “free speech wing of the free speech party,” is now widely perceived as anti-free speech and politically compromised. Twitter was reportedly secretly censoring tweets as early as 2015 and now bans popular anti-leftist accounts on a regular basis.
The most recent was @GodfreyElfwick, a popular satirical account known for embarrassing the BBC by convincing one of their reporters that his exaggerated left-wing persona was real. Elfwick (not his real name) was banned after insulting BBC personality Gary Lineker.
Meanwhile, endless abuse against right-wing public figures, including President Donald Trump, Anne Coulter, and others, is allowed to remain on the platform. Even death threats against Republican senators and calls for violence against the police have, in the past, been allowed to remain on Twitter for weeks.
Twitter’s share price currently sits at just over $20, down over two-thirds from its high of $69 in mid-2014. Morgan Stanley predicts that it will fall a further 50 percent, to $10.
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