Twitter said Tuesday it was stepping up its long-running battle against online trolls, trying to find offenders by looking at "behavioral signals."

The new approach looks at behavioral patterns of users in addition to the content of the tweets, allowing Twitter to find and mute online bullies and trolls.

Even if the offending tweets are not a violation of Twitter policy, they may be hidden from users if they are deemed to "distort" the conversation, Twitter said.

The announcement is the latest "safety" initiative by Twitter, which is seeking to filter out offensive speech while remaining an open platform.

Twitter already uses artificial intelligence and machine learning in this effort but the latest initiative aims to do more by focusing on the actions of certain users in addition to the content.

"Our ultimate goal is to encourage more free and open conversation," chief executive Jack Dorsey said.

"To do that we need to significantly reduce the ability to game and skew our systems. Looking at behavior, not content, is the best way to do that."

A Twitter blog post said the move aims at "troll-like behavior" which targets certain users and tweets with derisive responses.

"Some troll-like behavior is fun, good and humorous. What we're talking about today are troll-like behaviors that distort and detract from the public conversation on Twitter," said the blog from Twitter executives Del Harvey and David Gasca.

"Some of these accounts and tweets violate our policies, and, in those cases, we take action on them. Others don't but are behaving in ways that distort the conversation."

Harvey and Gasca said the challenge has been to address "disruptive behaviors that do not violate our policies but negatively impact the health of the conversation."

The new approach does not wait for people who use Twitter to report potential issues.

"There are many new signals we're taking in, most of which are not visible externally," the blog post said.

"Just a few examples include if an account has not confirmed their email address, if the same person signs up for multiple accounts simultaneously, accounts that repeatedly tweet and mention accounts that don't follow them, or behavior that might indicate a coordinated attack."

In some cases, if the content is not a violation of Twitter policies, it will not be deleted but only shown when a user clicks on "show more replies."

"The result is that people contributing to the healthy conversation will be more visible in conversations and search," Harvey and Gasca wrote.

Twitter said its tests of this approach shows a four percent drop in abuse reports from search and eight percent fewer abuse reports from conversations.

Related Links
Cyberwar - Internet Security News - Systems and Policy Issues

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The Space Media Network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceMediaNetwork Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceMediaNetwork Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Facebook shut 583 million fake accounts
Paris (AFP) May 15, 2018
Facebook axed 583 million fake accounts in the first three months of 2018, the social media giant said Tuesday, detailing how it enforces "community standards" against sexual or violent images, terrorist propaganda or hate speech. Responding to calls for transparency after the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal, Facebook said those closures came on top of blocking millions of attempts to create fake accounts every day. Despite this, the group said fake profiles still make up 3-4 percent of ... read more