(NewsNation Now) — After initially testing it with a small sample group of users, the beta version of Twitter’s Safety Mode is expanding to several new English-speaking markets, the social media company announced Tuesday.
Introduced in September 2021, Safety Mode is a feature aimed at reducing conflict and bullying on the site. The new feature temporarily blocks accounts for seven days for using “potentially harmful language” or sending repetitive and uninvited replies or mentions, according to Twitter’s blog.
When people turn on Safety Mode, Twitter’s systems will assess the likelihood of a “negative engagement” by considering a tweet’s content and the relationship between its author and replier.
Safety Mode beta will be available to approximately 50% of people in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, Twitter spokesperson Tatiana Britt said in an email.
“Bringing Safety Mode to more people will help us collect more insights on how Safety Mode is working and explore ways to incorporate additional improvements,” she said.
Since its initial rollout last year, Britt said, Twitter has learned that some people want help identifying unwelcome interactions.
So now, Britt said, Twitter will proactively identify problematic content on people’s feeds, and prompt them to consider enabling Safety Mode if they are eligible to do so.
“This update further reduces the burden on people dealing with unwelcome interactions,” she said.
