In their new approach to creating a safer online environment and build trust with advertisers, Twitter said ‘brand safety is human safety.’
As advertisers are becoming more and more cautious about brand safety, Twitter are taking steps to build trust.
The three key areas of focus to achieve this are policies, products and partnerships.
Head of global brand safety strategy, Caitlin Rush, said of the strategy: “Policies that lead, products that protect, and partnerships that drive industry-wide change.”
While the three areas of focus might seem a bit arbitrary, there have been some practical changes implemented over the past 15 months that have contributed to the new brand safety approach.
One of the key practical changes made by Twitter is prohibiting content for minors.
With growing concerns about minors and mental health issues, in particular body image problems, caused by social media, Twitter didn’t want to be in the same situation as Facebook.
Twitter updated their global advertising policies in August 2021 to include restrictions on weight loss content, particularly that which targeted minors.
In March 2021, Twitter announced labels on misleading COVID-19 information, and attempt to remove information they perceive to be the most misleading.
Twitter introduced prompts in May this year, which ask a person to reconsider posting their tweet when they consider the language to be harmful or offensive.
Another feature introduced is conversation settings, which allows someone to dictate who can reply to their tweets. In March 2021 this was made available to advertisers as well.
In January 2021 Birdwatch was launched, a community-based approach to misinformation which allows people to identify tweets they believe are misinforming.
Finally, in September 2020, article prompts were introduced to suggest people read an article before they amplify them.
Rush said: “Together, all of these product enhancements provide deeper signals for more personalised experiences on Twitter.
“That creates a better experience for the people using Twitter, and helps brands reach and engage the valuable communities that they most about at scale.”
“We know that we cannot do this alone. These are really complicated challenges, and we believe our industry needs to work together to drive meaningful change.”
With Twitter being the home of much online discourse and discussion, its tricky to find a set of rules and features that make the site work for everyone.
As trust is developed with advertisers, Twitter will have to continually redefine itself in the face of different challenges going into the future.
