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☆ Sen. Daines’s Twitter account suspended after posting profile picture of himself hunting
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Washington CNN —Twitter has suspended Montana Republican Sen. Steve Daines’s account for violations of the company’s sensitive media policy. Daines’ Twitter profile currently displays messages indicating that the account is “temporarily unavailable because it violates the Twitter Media Policy.”According to an aide to the senator, Daines’ account was suspended due to his profile picture, which had shown Daines and his wife posing while hunting. A separate campaign account for Daines with a different profile picture was unaffected. In a statement, Rachel Dumke, a spokesperson for Daine, called the suspension “preposterous” and said Twitter had informed Daines’ office that the suspension would last until the profile picture was removed. Daines’ profile picture had included an animal showing what appeared to be small flecks of blood on its coat, and that were difficult to discern without expanding the image.

☆ Twitter research group stall complicates compliance with new EU law
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

Twitter signed a voluntary agreement in June with the EU related to the DSA committing to "empowering the research community" through means including sharing datasets about disinformation with researchers. The EU law would require platforms with over 45 million EU users to respond to EU-vetted researcher proposals. THE WORK OF THE CONSORTIUMThe research consortium was formed in response to backlash against Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Twitter had been preparing to disclose at least a dozen new datasets to researchers before then, the former employees said. If the research consortium is eliminated, "we will be returning to the 2017 era of limited shared communication about malicious state actor activity," said Renée DiResta, research manager at Stanford Internet Observatory.

Twitter on Saturday blocked searches for a series of hashtags and keywords used to promote the sale of child sex abuse material (CSAM) following an investigation by NBC News posted the day before. NBC News observed the hashtags over a period of several weeks, and counted dozens of users who collectively published hundreds of tweets daily. Irwin said in the last six weeks Twitter had been analyzing thousands of hashtags for a project that was scheduled for completion in the next few weeks. In a review of hashtags and tweets last week, NBC News confirmed that searches related to the file-sharing site Mega had been blocked. A former employee who asked to remain anonymous because they had signed a nondisclosure agreement said that many of the employees specifically tasked with child safety issues had departed the company.

☆ Twitter further cuts staff overseeing global content moderation, Bloomberg reports
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Jan 7 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc made further staff cuts in the trust and safety team handling global content moderation and in the unit related to hate speech and harassment, Bloomberg news reported on Saturday. Workers on teams handling policy on misinformation, global appeals and state media on the platform were also eliminated, the report added. Twitter's vice president of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, confirmed to Reuters that Twitter made some cuts in the trust and safety team on Friday night but did not give details. "We have thousands of people within Trust and Safety who work content moderation and have not made cuts to the teams that do that work daily," she said via email. The company was also was hit with a lawsuit last month that claimed the social media company disproportionately targeted female employees in layoffs.

☆ A fake tweet spurred an anti-vaccine harassment campaign against a doctor
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Brandy-Zadrozny-Circle-Byline-Template.Jpg | Brandy Zadrozny | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +8 min

When Dr. Natalia Solenkova woke up Monday morning, she was greeted with a flood of Twitter notifications on her phone. It was what misinformation researchers call a “cheap fake,” a term for a piece of fake media such as an image or video that takes little effort to produce. Someone had clumsily altered one of Solenkova’s posts to portray a blind, even deadly, zealotry for Covid vaccines and a vilification of anti-vaccine activists. “And then disinformation became rampant.”Despite the overwhelming success of the covid vaccines — which have prevented millions of severe infections and deaths — an aggressive and politicized anti-vaccine community has persevered. There were obvious tells that the tweet attributed to Solenkova was a fake, likely fabricated with what’s known as a tweet generator.

☆ Elon Musk's Twitter lifts ban on political ads
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-03 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 4 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc will reverse its 2019 ban on political ads, the company's head of trust and safety confirmed to Reuters on Wednesday, as the Elon Musk-owned company seeks to grow revenue. The change brings Twitter's policies closer to Meta Platform's (META.O) Facebook and Alphabet Inc's (GOOGL.O) YouTube, which allow political advertising. One platform that still bans political ads is Chinese video app TikTok. "We believe that cause-based advertising can facilitate public conversation around important topics," the social media company tweeted. Twitter banned political ads in 2019 after it and other social media companies faced widespread criticism for allowing election misinformation to spread.

☆ Twitter restores suicide prevention feature after Reuters report
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Kenneth Li | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Dec 24 (Reuters) - 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. After publication of the story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted "Twitter doesn't prevent suicide." loadingloadingThe feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, placed a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. Its elimination had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.

Its elimination had led to increased concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users on Twitter. Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a recently dissolved Twitter content advisory group, said the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was "extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing." AIDS United said a webpage that the Twitter feature linked to attracted about 70 views a day until Dec. 18. In one of its blog posts about the feature, Twitter had said it had responsibility to ensure users could "access and receive support on our service when they need it most." Musk has said he wants to combat child sexual abuse content on Twitter and has criticized the previous ownership's handling of the issue.

☆ Elon Musk quietly ordered the removal of Twitter's #ThereIsHelp suicide prevention feature, report says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-24 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk quietly ordered the removal of a Twitter suicide prevention feature, sources told Reuters. But Twitter's head of trust and safety, Ella Irwin, said a replacement should go live next week. The news agency reported the #ThereIsHelp feature, which appeared when users viewed certain content, had disappeared from Twitter this week. It sought to give users credible information related to topics including HIV, mental health and suicide prevention, vaccines, and gender-based violence. But Eirliani A Rahman, who recently left Twitter's trust and safety council, told Reuters the move was "extremely disconcerting and profoundly disturbing."

☆ Elon Musk restores Twitter accounts of journalists but concerns persist
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-17 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Dec 17 (Reuters) - Elon Musk reinstated the Twitter accounts of several journalists that were suspended for a day over a controversy on publishing public data about the billionaire's plane. A Twitter poll that Musk conducted later also showed that a majority of the respondents wanted the accounts restored immediately. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now," Musk said in a tweet on Saturday. A Reuters check showed the suspended accounts, which included journalists from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post, have been reinstated. Musk accused the journalists of posting his real-time location, saying it amounted to providing "basically assassination coordinates" for his family.

☆ Twitter manually reviewed all accounts that posted links to ElonJet -exec
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Elon Musk's Twitter profile is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File PhotoDec 16 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc's head of trust and safety told Reuters the company manually reviewed "any and all accounts" that violated its new privacy policy by posting links to a Twitter account called ElonJet that tracked Elon Musk's private jet using information in the public domain. Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of several journalists, including from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post. "I understand that the focus seems to be mainly on journalist accounts but we applied the policy equally to journalists and non-journalist accounts today," said Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety, in an email to Reuters. Reporting by Sheila Dang in Dallas; Editing by Chizu NomiyamaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Twitter suspends accounts of several journalists
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Dec 15 (Reuters) - Twitter on Thursday suspended the accounts of several prominent journalists who recently wrote about its new owner Elon Musk, with the billionaire tweeting that rules banning the publishing of personal information applied to all, including journalists. On Wednesday, Twitter suspended @elonjet, an account tracking Musk's private jet in real time using data available in the public domain. Twitter on Thursday showed "account suspended" notices for a clutch of journalists' accounts. A spokesperson for The New York Times said: "Tonight's suspension of the Twitter accounts of a number of prominent journalists, including The New York Times's Ryan Mac, is questionable and unfortunate. We hope that all of the journalists' accounts are reinstated and that Twitter provides a satisfying explanation for this action."

☆ Twitter suspends account tracking Elon Musk's jet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Dec 14 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc suspended an account tracking its owner Elon Musk's private jet in real-time, with the billionaire threatening legal action against the account's operator after saying his son had been mistakenly followed by a "crazy stalker". ElonJet, operated by 20-year-old university student Jack Sweeney, had tracked the movements of Musk's private jet using data available in the public domain before the suspension. The billionaire also tweeted that one of his sons, lil X, had been harassed, and linked it to the tracking accounts. Sweeney, a student at the University of Central Florida, who also operates similar bot accounts tracking Musk's jet on Facebook, Instagram and Telegram, told BuzzFeed the suspension is "a surprise to many people after he publicly said he wouldn't do it." Separately, Twitter accounts tracking the jets of billionaire tech entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates were also suspended.

☆ A Twitter account which tracked Elon Musk's private jet has been suspended, despite Musk saying he wouldn't ban it for 'free speech' reasons
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The Twitter account tracking Elon Musk's private jet was suspended from the platform on Wednesday. The account @elonjet has been suspended today with a message on its profile saying: "Twitter suspends accounts that violate the Twitter Rules." The billionaire CEO tweeted in November that he wouldn't remove the account for "free speech" reasons saying: "My commitment to free speech extends even to not banning the account following my plane, even though that is a direct personal safety risk." Elon originally offered Sweeney $5,000 to take down the tracking account saying it's a "security risk" and he doesn't "love the idea of being shot by a nutcase." Musk has claimed to be a "free speech absolutist," and recently published his Twitter Files which aims to expose free speech suppression on the platform prior to his takeover.

☆ Twitter suspends bot account tracking Elon Musk's jet
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 14 (Reuters) - Twitter Inc suspended a bot account tracking its owner Elon Musk's private jet, the account's operator Jack Sweeney said in a tweet on Wednesday. The Twitter account tracked movements of Musk's private jet using data available in the public domain. Later in the day, Sweeney's Twitter account was also suspended. In previous media interviews, Sweeney said he turned down a $5,000 offer from Musk in 2021 to shut down the bot account. Separately, Twitter accounts tracking the jets of billionaire tech entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates have also been suspended.

☆ Twitter suspends account that tracked Elon Musk's private jet, despite billionaire's 'free speech' pledge
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

The move comes after Musk has reinstated previous Twitter rule-breakers and stopped enforcing the platform’s policies prohibiting Covid-19 misinformation. Sweeney woke up Wednesday morning to a message from Twitter informing him @ElonJet had been permanently suspended. Later in the day his personal account and other jet-tracking accounts he ran were also shut down by the company. According to screenshots Sweeney shared with CNN, Musk reached out to him last December through a Twitter private message asking, “Can you take this down? “Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation.

☆ Twitter took down the account that tracks Elon Musk's jet, but the ones tracking Mark Zuckerberg and other celebrities are still up and running
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Grace Kay | Taylor Rains | Sawdah Bhaimiya | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Twitter suspended an account that tracks Elon Musk's jet, but left dozens of accounts tracking other celebrities. On Wednesday, Sweeney's @elonjet account on Twitter had a notice on it saying it had been suspended because "Twitter suspends accounts that violate the Twitter Rules." But, as of Wednesday afternoon, @ZuccJet and @CelebJets, as well as his other jet-tracking accounts were still posting travel updates. Sweeney, Musk, and a Twitter spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment ahead of publication. When Musk first offered to buy Twitter, Sweeney said he thought it was likely that Musk would try to shut down the account.

Meanwhile, Twitter’s resources to fight child sexual exploitation content online (and what is sometimes called child pornography or child sexual abuse materials) are thin, following layoffs, mass-firings and resignations from the company. Child sexual exploitation content has remained a problem for Twitter, though most major social media platforms continue to deal with it in some form or another. Moderation of this content usually relies on a combination of automated detection systems and specialized internal teams and external contractors to identify child abuse content and remove it. “So, I mean, that is disheartening.”It’s unclear how many Twitter employees remain to work on child safety issues. A search on LinkedIn for current Twitter employees who say they work on child safety turned up only a few accounts.

Less than a month after taking control of Twitter , Elon Musk said addressing child sexual exploitation content on the social media platform was "Priority #1." "It is a crime that they refused to take action on child exploitation for years!" Meanwhile, Twitter's resources to fight child sexual exploitation content online (and what is sometimes called child pornography or child sexual abuse materials) are thin, following layoffs, mass-firings and resignations from the company. Twitter's imperfect efforts fighting child sexual exploitation content were well documented. Stroppa said he felt Twitter's previous efforts were lacking and that it now moves quickly to find and suspend accounts that post child sexual exploitation content.

☆ Twitter’s New Head of Trust and Safety Says Platform Wants to Move Quickly
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Alexa Corse | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Twitter Inc.’s new head of trust and safety said the platform is emphasizing moving swiftly to address problematic content, even if it means figuring out some specifics later. “For now, I think we are biasing towards moving quickly and figuring out the details in some of these areas after,” said Ella Irwin , who joined Twitter in June and took the top job overseeing user content and safety policies in November.

☆ Twitter hasn't decided if Ye's exile from the platform is permanent, new safety chief says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Sindhu Sundar | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Twitter's new safety chief told The Wall Street Journal that Ye's return to the platform is uncertain. Since Elon Musk's takeover, it's been unclear how content moderation decisions are made at Twitter. At the time, Musk said that he decided to kick Ye off the site and shared text messages in which he told Ye, "you have gone too far. The notion of policing speech on the platform has vexed Musk, who at one point indicated plans to enlist a "content moderation council" to advise on decisions. Despite that proclamation, Musk brought back former President Donald Trump onto the platform after conducting a Twitter poll, rather than consulting such a council.

☆ The Twitter account that tracks Elon Musk's private jet has been shadowbanned, its owner says
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Beatrice Nolan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

The Twitter user that tracks Elon Musk's private jet says the account has been shadowbanned. Jack Sweeney, the person behind the jet tracking account, ElonJet, took to Twitter on Sunday to accuse the social media platform of suppressing the automated account. Some users had already claimed that they couldn't search or tag the jet tracking account through suggested usernames. Such accounts have become so much of a concern to LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault that he recently sold his private jet and moved to using rental planes to avoid tracking. Musk had previously said he wouldn't ban the Twitter account because of his free-speech commitments.

☆ Elon Musk told ex-Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey 'almost no one was working on child safety' when he took over
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-10 | by ( Sam Tabahriti | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Elon Musk tweeted it was a "crime" child safety wasn't prioritized at Twitter before he took over. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey responded via Twitter that Musk's claim was "false". Musk doubled down and added it was his "top priority" with new trust and safety chief Ella Erwin. Dorsey responded that Musk's claim was "false." Musk contradicted Dorsey and said: "When Ella Irwin, who now runs Trust & Safety, joined Twitter earlier this year, almost no one was working on child safety."

☆ Exclusive: Twitter to introduce new controls for ad placements
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Sheila Dang | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Musk recently attributed a "massive drop in revenue" to civil rights organizations that have pressured brands to pause their Twitter ads. The email to advertisers on Thursday, which was reviewed by Reuters, said a revamped version of Twitter's subscription service called Twitter Blue would begin rolling out on Friday. Elon Musk's Twitter profile is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. Twitter also told advertisers that it removed ads from profiles mentioned in a Washington Post article on Tuesday, which reported that ads had appeared on the Twitter accounts of white nationalists. Twitter, which has lost many members of its communications team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

☆ Elon Musk and Facebook's former chief security officer got into it on Twitter over the release of the 'Twitter Files Part 2'
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-09 | by ( Britney Nguyen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Elon Musk sparred on Twitter with Facebook's former security chief over "Twitter Files part two." Alex Stamos tweeted "Musk fired the lawyer" who would tell him what happens if non-employees have access to users' DMs. On Thursday, conservative columnist Bari Weiss tweeted the latest thread of "files," an installment about "Twitter's secret blacklists." Journalist Matt Taibbi tweeted the first part of the "Twitter Files" last week, which Musk described as internal communications that would reveal Twitter tried to censor free speech on the platform. Stamos tweeted that he was the target of "a wave of really poorly targeted racist and antisemitic slurs from" Musk's "posse," after Musk's reply.

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