Recently, Twitter said that it has decided to completely ban political ads. While some people supported Twitter for this decision, others had questions regarding its effectiveness. The targeted political ads on Facebook affected the 2016 US Presidential Elections but they weren’t a big deal on Twitter. The main issue on Twitter for the past number of years has been the rise of automated bot armies.
According to multiple researches, various interconnected Twitter bot networks have been used to enhance certain tweets (mostly political ones). The largest network was composed of 500,000 fake profiles.
During the third presidential debate (US), Recode reported that bots supporting Trump-related content beat those supporting Hillary Clinton by 7 to 1. Moreover, bots were behind one in every three pro-Trump tweets between the first and second debates, as opposed to one in every five for Clinton.
Twitter recently unveiled the latest version of its Transparency Report that covers all the steps the social networking service has taken based on the given details and enforcement actions. It should also be noted that the report mentions the statistics on profiles taken down because of inauthentic engagements and activity.
Twitter has also been working on some other important changes such as limiting the use of mass follow and retweeting. The reporting metrics have also been changed to monetizable daily active users, which has the potential to serve as a contributing factor in the removal of fake profiles.
Amid these changes, people are questioning Twitter about the decision to ban political ads when the bot issue is more concerning. Well, it can be said that Twitter’s political ad ban is potentially a good move as well as it would prevent (to some extent) the spread of misinformation.
Additionally, it is visible in the Transparency Report that an increase of 105% has been observed in accounts being suspended or locked for violating the rules of Twitter. Moreover, around half of the abusive tweets are now directly spotted by Twitter instead of being reported by users.
People have criticized Twitter a lot for not taking the necessary actions to safeguard its users on the platform. Now however, the improvements are being made. Although the company is not much in the news for taking steps in the positive direction, credit should be given where it is due.
You are encouraged to read the detailed Transparency Report as it is packed with additional ingishts regarding legal demands and government requests.
In the end, Twitter has a long way to go to get its platform rid of all the negatives but the progress it has made so far is commendable.
Photo: REUTERS / Anushree Fadnavis
Read next: Twitter Brings Important Update for Android Users
According to multiple researches, various interconnected Twitter bot networks have been used to enhance certain tweets (mostly political ones). The largest network was composed of 500,000 fake profiles.
During the third presidential debate (US), Recode reported that bots supporting Trump-related content beat those supporting Hillary Clinton by 7 to 1. Moreover, bots were behind one in every three pro-Trump tweets between the first and second debates, as opposed to one in every five for Clinton.
Twitter recently unveiled the latest version of its Transparency Report that covers all the steps the social networking service has taken based on the given details and enforcement actions. It should also be noted that the report mentions the statistics on profiles taken down because of inauthentic engagements and activity.
Twitter has also been working on some other important changes such as limiting the use of mass follow and retweeting. The reporting metrics have also been changed to monetizable daily active users, which has the potential to serve as a contributing factor in the removal of fake profiles.
Amid these changes, people are questioning Twitter about the decision to ban political ads when the bot issue is more concerning. Well, it can be said that Twitter’s political ad ban is potentially a good move as well as it would prevent (to some extent) the spread of misinformation.
Additionally, it is visible in the Transparency Report that an increase of 105% has been observed in accounts being suspended or locked for violating the rules of Twitter. Moreover, around half of the abusive tweets are now directly spotted by Twitter instead of being reported by users.
People have criticized Twitter a lot for not taking the necessary actions to safeguard its users on the platform. Now however, the improvements are being made. Although the company is not much in the news for taking steps in the positive direction, credit should be given where it is due.
You are encouraged to read the detailed Transparency Report as it is packed with additional ingishts regarding legal demands and government requests.
In the end, Twitter has a long way to go to get its platform rid of all the negatives but the progress it has made so far is commendable.
Photo: REUTERS / Anushree Fadnavis
Read next: Twitter Brings Important Update for Android Users
