Twitter brings Back 'Mute' to minimize Hateful speech

Twitter announced changes in their blog post earlier today about updating their policy on hateful conduct. The company is also enabling its previous "mute" feature to assist users to avoid seeing notifications about certain keywords and phrases.

What is Mute Feature on Twitter

Originally introduced in 2014, Twitter's mute function lets users prevent unwanted content without actually blocking other users.  Twitter mentioned in the blog post that many users have requested mute capabilities to bar abusive content from other users.

twitter mute feature to silently mute obnoxious followers
The feature guards Twitter as well, although it blunts the free communication on the platform. Not to mention it will have some impact on Twitter's image of a real-time Breaking News Platform. Over the past few years, Twitter has seen a number of high-profile instances of abuse. During an earnings call in July this year, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that "Freedom of expression means little if we allow voices to be silenced because of fear of harassment if they speak up,"

Twitter published a blog post a day before U.S.-based Nov. 8 election stating that users had sent 1 billion election-related tweets since the primary debates in August 2015. The top three topics for tweets were foreign affairs, terrorism and the U.S. economy.

Trying to get the mess sorted before it's too late

Not more than a week ago, Facebook was broadly criticized for inventing News to rally political opinion during the just concluded US Presidential Elections 2016. May be now it's Twitter's turn to do some house cleaning as well.

Analyzing Mute Feature on Twitter and comparing it with similar moves on Facebook

The mute feature on Twitter is more convenient and less threatening for most Twitter users. This because blocking someone who has love hate relationship for you and your views is not that easy. The user can harbor some grudge. The ability of not seeing obnoxious or unwanted tweets from your time line is the best option. But there's a flip side of this feature. The range of Twitter platform will considerably decrease as now the number followers a person has will become meaningless. People will follow a certain person and will never make their voice heard.

In the past Facebook removed some of its features which were very similar to Twitter's mute feature. Such as not allowing Facebook users know who visited their profiles. Or silently rejecting a friend request. Although it helped bring some peace for Facebook users, it converted Facebook into a small compartments, where the place for decent debate decreased. You can take extreme positions, but not a milder one. It increased the marketing scope though.

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