Twitter rolls out new policies to curb abuse, trolling
San Francisco, June 27 : To address abuse and trolls on its platform, Twitter has introduced new policies on hateful conduct and violent extremism, including a plan to bring in new technology and staff to fight spam and abuse.
The micro-blogging platform said that in May, its systems identified and challenged more than 9.9 million potentially "spammy" or automated accounts per week -- up from 6.4 million in December and 3.2 million in September 2017.
"To make it harder to register spam accounts, we're going to require new accounts to confirm either an email address or phone number when they sign up to Twitter.
"This is an important change to defend against people who try to take advantage of our openness," Twitter said in a blog post late on Tuesday.
"Due to technology and process improvements during the past year, we are now removing 214 per cent more accounts for violating our spam policies on a year-on-year basis," it added.
Twitter saw a drop in the average number of spam reports -- from an average of approximately 25,000 per day in March, to approximately 17,000 per day in May.
"We've also seen a 10 per cent drop in spam reports from search as a result of our recent changes. These decreases in reports received means people are encountering less spam in their timeline, search, and across the Twitter product," the company said.
Twitter currently has 330 million user accounts.
"We're also moving rapidly to curb spam and abuse originating via Twitter's APIs. In Q1 2018, we suspended more than 142,000 applications in violation of our rules -- collectively responsible for more than 130 million low-quality, spammy tweets," the blog post said.
To reduce the visibility of suspicious accounts in Tweet and account metrics, the company said it has started updating account metrics in near-real time.
"For example, the number of followers an account has, or the number of likes or Retweets a Tweet receives, will be correctly updated when we take action on accounts," it added.
Twitter is also conducting an audit to secure a number of legacy systems used to create accounts.
"The new protections we've developed as a result of this audit have already helped us prevent more than 50,000 spammy signups per day," the company said.
Twitter is also automating some processes where it sees suspicious account activity, like exceptionally high-volume tweeting with the same hashtag, or using the same @handle without a reply from the account a user has mentioned.
Twitter said it will continue to invest in leveraging Machine Learning (ML) technology and partnerships with third parties.
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Despite Modi's Saudi visit, uncertainty persists for 42,500 Hajj pilgrims
New Delhi: Uncertainty looms large over the fate of 42,500 Indian Hajj pilgrims registered with private tour operators, as procedural lapses prevented the completion of formalities before the closure of Saudi Arabia's Hajj portal.
Even as hopes were pinned on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia for a resolution, the issue reportedly remained unaddressed, especially after his trip was cut short due to the Pahalgam terror attack.
Private tour operators allege that the central government failed to inform them about the February deadline for completing Hajj travel procedures. However, the government blames the operators for not adhering to required protocols in time.
Saudi Arabia had recently announced an additional quota of 10,000 Hajj slots, reopening the Nusukh portal on Thursday. But tour operators claim that technical issues have stalled the uploading process. The portal is set to close by May 5, leaving very little time. Reportedly, fewer than 500 pilgrims from Kerala may benefit from this new quota.
Out of the 1.75 lakh Hajj slots allotted to India under the India-Saudi agreement, 30%—approximately 52,500—were designated for private operators. It is this quota that is now in jeopardy.
An estimated 11,000 pilgrims from Kerala had registered through private operators, some even switching from the government-run Hajj Committee in hopes of better services. Many of them have already paid up to Rs 6 lakh, either as an advance or in full. Operators claim that these payments were remitted to the central authorities.
