Line many other online platforms, Twitter also offered a suicide prevention feature. When users search for certain content that may suggest self-harm, it showed a #ThereIsHelp banner that pointed them to suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources. But this banner suddenly disappeared from Twitter last week. News spread quickly that Elon Musk ordered its removal, leading to widespread criticism from users and consumer safety advocates. Musk, meanwhile, called it “fake news” and said that the banner is still up, though it wasn’t appearing for many users. “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide,” he added in his typical style. Turns out the news was indeed incorrect. The Twitter CEO hadn’t ordered the removal of the suicide prevention feature. Instead, it was the company’s trust and safety department making some changes to the banner. The prompt is once again showing up underneath such content. Twitter’s head of trust and safety told Reuters, which originally claimed that Musk ordered the removal of the feature, that the company was optimizing the banner and had temporarily removed it. The social network worked on the size of the banner and its relevance. It also corrected outdated prompts. “We know they are useful and our intent was not to have them down permanently,” she added in her emailed statement to the publication.
Twitter plans to adopt Google’s approach for its suicide prevention feature
Along with clarifying the #ThereIsHelp banner’s temporary removal last week, Irwin also shared more information about Twitter’s plan for its suicide prevention feature. She said the company will adopt Google’s approach for this banner. “Google provides highly relevant message prompts based on search terms, they are always current and are optimized appropriately for both mobile and web,” Irwin said, adding that Twitter is “mirroring” some of these approaches in its changes. Twitter’s #ThereIsHelp banner appeared under search results for topics like suicide, self-harm, HIV, COVID-19, child sexual exploitation, domestic violence, gender-based violence, and more. It’s unclear if the banner has been restored for all of these topics. Meanwhile, consumer safety advocates have pointed out that the company should have worked on the changes “in parallel” without removing the existing features. Once ready, it could have immediately replaced those with new features.
