UPDATE 1-Twitter restores suicide prevention function after Reuters report

(Provides particulars and extra Twitter remark)

By Kenneth Li, Paresh Dave and Sheila Dang

NEW YORK, Dec 24 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc has restored a function that promotes suicide prevention hotlines and different security sources to customers wanting up sure content material, after coming below strain from some customers and client security teams over its removing.

Reuters reported on Friday that the function was taken down a number of days in the past, citing two folks acquainted with the matter, who mentioned the removing was ordered by the social media platform’s new proprietor Elon Musk.

After publication of the story, Twitter head of belief and security Ella Irwin confirmed the removing and referred to as it momentary.

Twitter was “fixing relevance, optimizing the dimensions of the message prompts and correcting outdated prompts,” Irwin mentioned in an e mail to Reuters. “We all know they’re helpful and our intent was to not have them down completely.”

About 15 hours after the preliminary report, Musk, who didn’t initially reply to requests for remark, tweeted “False, it’s nonetheless there.” In response to criticism by Twitter customers, he additionally tweeted “Twitter does not forestall suicide.”

The function, often known as #ThereIsHelp, locations a banner on the prime of search outcomes for sure matters. It has listed contacts for assist organizations in lots of international locations associated to psychological well being, HIV, vaccines, baby sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, pure disasters and freedom of expression.

By Saturday, the banner returned to searches about suicide and home violence in a number of international locations below phrases like “shtwt,” shorthand for “self-harm Twitter.”

Whether or not the function had been restored for different classes was not clear. The function was not showing for some search queries that Twitter has beforehand mentioned triggered it, resembling “#HIV.”

Irwin didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Saturday.

Twitter bans customers from encouraging self-harm, although client security teams have criticized the corporate for permitting posts that they are saying violate the coverage.

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On Saturday, tweets exhibiting graphic imagery of individuals slicing their arms appeared beneath banners on searches for self-harm.

The disappearance of #ThereIsHelp had led some client security teams and Twitter customers to precise issues concerning the well-being of susceptible customers of the platform.

Partly attributable to strain from such teams, web companies together with Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Fb have for years tried to direct customers to well-known useful resource suppliers for issues of safety.

In her e mail on Friday, Twitter’s Irwin mentioned, “Google does very well with these of their search outcomes and (we) are literally mirroring a few of their method with the modifications we’re making.”

She added, “Google gives extremely related message prompts based mostly on search phrases, they’re at all times present and are optimized appropriately for each cell and net.”

Eirliani Abdul Rahman, who had been on a not too long ago dissolved Twitter content material advisory group, mentioned the disappearance of #ThereIsHelp was “extraordinarily disconcerting” and that fully eradicating a function to revamp it was uncommon. (Reporting by Kenneth Li in New York, Sheila Dang in Dallas, Paresh Dave in Oakland, and Fanny Potkin in Singapore; Modifying by Daniel Wallis)