Twitter has decided to intensify its verification mechanisms in order to combat spam, trolls and malicious accounts on its platform.
"Every day, people come to Twitter to see what's going on. One of the most important parts of our focus on improving conversations on Twitter is ensuring that people have access to credible, relevant, high-quality information on Twitter. To help achieve this goal, we have introduced new measures to combat abuse and trolls, new policies against hate speech and violent extremism, and are introducing new technologies and staff to combat spam and abuse.
But we know there is still a lot of work to be done. Inauthentic accounts, spam, and malicious automation disrupt everyone's experience on Twitter, and we've made efforts to identify and prevent attempts to manipulate conversations on our platform.
We are excited to share some recent progress and new measures on how we handle spam, malicious automation, and platform manipulation."
The announcement came officially these days on the social's blog. Among the new features are security measures and verification for new subscribers and the acquisition of a start-up to combat bots.
What led CEO Jack Dorsey to acknowledge that his company inadvertently helped spread disinformation, harassment and manipulation through bots and automated accounts.
Twitter has always by its nature positioned itself as a platform for the free exchange of information and news, a media polis where everyone can tweet their opinion. In the recent period, however, Twitter has been repeatedly accused of failing to protect its users against haters and fake news. One glaring case was the nongovernmental organization Amnesty International condemning Twitter for not protecting female users enough. It also adds to the discovery that some Russian accounts influenced public opinion on social during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Let us look in detail at the countermeasures taken by Twitter.
#1 - Improving the enrollment process
To make life more difficult for spam accounts, a requirement for an email address or phone number at sign-up has been introduced. All to prevent automatic sign-ups, the new protections have already estimated over 50,000 spam registrations per day.
Two-factor authentication has been introduced to increase and ensure the security of those already enrolled in the social. Instead of entering only a password to log in, you will also need to enter a code that is sent via SMS. This verification helps to be sure that you are the only one accessing your account.
#2 - Update account metrics in real time
Spam and automatons always share similar and mass behaviors.
Often accounts involved in these activities are successfully caught by automatic detection tools and removed from active user metrics shortly after the suspicious behavior begins. Twitter has therefore announced that it will begin updating account metrics in near real-time: for example, the number of followers an account has or the number of Likes or Retweets received on a tweet. Suspicious accounts will be placed in a read-only status, where the account cannot interact with others or tweet, they will be removed from follower figures and engagement counts until they confirm a number.
In addition, a read-only alert will be displayed on the accounts in question, preventing new accounts from following them to help prevent inadvertent exposure to potentially harmful content. Twitter is automating certain processes when suspicious account activity emerges, such as tweeting at high volume with the same hashtag or using the same @tag without a response from the account being mentioned. These tests vary in intensity and at a simple level may involve the account owner completing the process with simple reCAPTCHA or a password reset request. More complex cases are automatically passed to the review team.
In addition, Twitter is developing machine learning algorithms that detect suspicious accounts instead of waiting for an actual user to report them. The measures taken, according to security officials, have reduced reports by 10 percent, from an average of 25,000 per day in March, to about 17,000 in May.
#3 - Acquisition of start-up Smyte
Last week twitter acquired Smyte, a startup specializing in security. Founded in 2014 by Pete Hunt, Julian Tempelsman and Josh Yudaken, former engineers with experience at companies such as Google, Facebook and Instagram.
Smyte helps its clients rank virtuous or harmful behavior on their apps in real time. Its clients include Quora, TaskRabbit, and Meetup.
"Their tools and review processes will join our technologies that help keep Twitter a safe place. [...] The Smyte team has addressed many issues surrounding online security and believes in the same proactive approach we are taking with Twitter: stopping abusive behavior before it affects anyone's experience."
the twitter team on blog
But that's not all, applications related to the social network were also involved, which were held responsible for about 130 million spam and low-quality tweets. In fact, more than 142 thousand were deleted, and in April and May alone, 49 thousand malware applications were deleted per month.
Since the beginning of this year, the fight against bots has also been strengthened: more than 9.9 million have been identified and removed in the last month. In fact, computer programs that send messages automatically are considered among the prime culprits in spreading propaganda, including political propaganda, on social networks.
As preannounced on the blog, Twitter will not stop investing in this direction, with the goal of healing the public health of the conversation on social.