Twitter Is Taking Part in a Study To Reduce Online Abuse

Twitter Takes Part in a study to reduce online abusive

When it comes to social media, you often don’t have to look far to find some toxic behavior. Safely hidden behind their keyboard some people find nothing better to do than spam toxic abuse at others. As such, Twitter is parting part in a study to see if a simple change can make all the difference.

In a report via CNET, Twitter has announced plans to make their rules and terms far more clear to users. By doing this, and clearly highlighting the rule against toxic behavior, they are interested to see if it will result in less abusive posts.

This could potentially work

It’s certainly an interesting concept. We all know that social media sites do not want us to post our virtual vitriol on their sites. As such, making that point more clear could potentially see some people rethink their attitude before posting a comment. It could, therefore, potentially work and work well.

Susan Benesch, an associate professor at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University has said: “Social norms, which are people’s beliefs about what institutions and other people consider acceptable behavior, powerfully influence what people do and don’t do. Research has shown that when institutions publish rules clearly, people are more likely to follow them. We also have early evidence from Nathan’s research with Reddit communities that making policies visible can improve online behavior. In an experiment starting today, Twitter is publicizing its rules, to test whether this improves civility.”

What do we think?

While I doubt that it will stop everyone, it might just cause people to second guess themselves before clicking that post button. To be successful, it doesn’t even necessarily have to be 100% effective. For a website as large as Twitter, even a 20% drop would see a significant improvement in the way it can monitor the social-media site.

What do you think? Is this a good idea? – Let us know in the comments!