Twitter launches another bid to tackle bots and abuse after years of promises

Twitter has asked for help in tackling the rampant harassment, bots, misinformation and polarisation in a more strategic way so that it can improve the “health” of conversation on the platform, said the company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey. Dorsey suggested that the health of conversations could be measured using indicators developed by the media analytics firm Cortico, which include: shared attention (is there overlap in what we are talking about?), shared reality (are we using the same facts?), variety of opinion (are we exposed to different opinions grounded in shared reality?) and receptivity (are we open, civil and listening to different opinions?). 

“We aren’t proud of how people have taken advantage of our service, or our inability to address it fast enough,” Dorsey tweeted. “We’ve focused most of our efforts on removing content against our terms, instead of building a systemic framework to help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking. This is the approach we need now.”