How can moderators and social media platforms, who have no direct experience of colonisation, pick up on such culturally nuanced negativity against Indigenous people?
In an effort to reverse the flood of abuse on the platform, Twitter is rolling out a new feature which will show a self-moderation prompt to users who compose replies that the platform’s algorithms recognise to be abusive. The prompt effectively asks users to think twice before posting an abusive message.
Because it compels users to rethink and reflect on abusive tweets, Twitter’s new self-moderation prompt could be a promising step away from fast and furious social media posting and towards a more considered slow media – or “slowcial media”.
Twitter’s new feature
This isn’t the first time Twitter has trialled and released “nudges” aimed at addressing poor behaviour on the platform. In 2020, Twitter added misinformation labels to tweets in response to COVID-19 conspiracies circulating on the platform, which they say reduced the number of tweets quoting misleading information by 29%.
Football Cybersmile Foundation: Online racist abuse is spiralling out of control morningstaronline.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from morningstaronline.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Stories of celebrities suffering abuse and harassment on Twitter are a constant feature in today’s news. Footballers and rugby players are ritually abused if their teams lose. Politicians and journalists are abused for doing their jobs – and that abuse is far worse for women. Even Captain Sir Tom Moore was subjected to a torrent of abuse on Twitter.
This abuse has led many high-profile celebrities to quit social media altogether, most notably Harry and Meghan, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. And Twitter has been singled out as a particularly uncivil social media platform, where abuse and harassment are common.
DUNDEE have condemned “vile racist messages” received by on-loan Celtic forward Jonathan Afolabi.
Afolabi shared a string of racist abuse messages he received from one user on his Instagram account after netting a stoppage-time equaliser during a 3-2 extra-time Scottish Cup win over Bonnyrigg Rose on Saturday night.
A Dundee statement read: “Following last night’s Scottish Cup victory over Bonnyrigg Rose we were made aware of vile racist messages that had been directed to one of our players.
“Dundee Football Club utterly condemns racism in any form.
“Racism has no place in society. We have reported these unacceptable messages and will look into what further steps can be taken.