Twitter launches ‘trust and safety council’ to police harmful content

Twitter on Tuesday announced the formation of a “Trust and Safety Council,” which will aim to develop policies for censoring certain speech on the social media site.

In a blog post, Twitter said the council will be comprised of more than 40 groups from 13 regions around the world.

“To ensure people can continue to express themselves freely and safely on Twitter, we must provide more tools and policies. With hundreds of millions of Tweets sent per day, the volume of content on Twitter is massive, which makes it extraordinarily complex to strike the right balance between fighting abuse and speaking truth to power,” Twitter said in a statement.

“It requires a multi-layered approach where each of our 320 million users has a part to play, as do the community of experts working for safety and free expression,” the statement said.

Critics have condemned Twitter in recent months for not doing enough to combat extremism spread on its site. Both the Obama administration and members of Congress have been calling on social media sites, including Twitter, to do more to assist in the fight against terrorism.

In December, a California woman filed a lawsuit against Twitter, claiming Islamic State supporters used the site to spread propaganda that contributed to her husband’s shooting death in Jordan.

The council will focus on developing ways to combat violent rhetoric on the site, but will likely expand Twitter’s policies to policing other content as well.

Some of the groups involved in the council include the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Feminist Frequency, and the International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism.

Former CEO Dick Costolo had said it was no secret that “we suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform.”

Current CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted Tuesday, “Twitter stands for freedom of expression, speaking truth to power, and empowering dialogue.”

Last week, Twitter announced it had removed more than 125,000 accounts belonging to members of the Islamic State since the middle of 2015. In December, Twitter updated its privacy policy and terms of service to more clearly define what is considers hateful or abusive language.