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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Delhi court acquits husband, in-laws in dowry death case
New Delhi (PTI): A Delhi court has acquitted a man and his parents in a dowry death case, saying the prosecution failed to establish allegations of cruelty or dowry harassment against them.
Additional Sessions Judge Deepak Wason acquitted Kartik Sharma, his father Ravi Dutt Sharma, and his mother Veena Sharma in the case of Shivali Sharma, who died by suicide in March 2023.
The accused were facing trial under Sections 498A (cruelty by husband or relatives) and 304B (dowry death) of the IPC.
In the April 1 order, the court said, “There is nothing on record to establish the culpability of the accused persons in the commission of the offences charged against them. The prosecution has failed to prove the charge beyond a reasonable doubt.”
It held that while the death was unnatural and occurred within seven years of marriage, the key elements of dowry death, particularly proof of harassment connected to dowry demands, remained unproven.
According to the prosecution, the deceased's family alleged she was subjected to harassment and repeated dowry demands, including cash and a vehicle, which allegedly drove her to commit suicide.
The police registered the FIR after her parents made statements before an executive magistrate.
However, during the trial, key prosecution witnesses, including the deceased's mother, father, brother, uncle and grandmother, did not support the allegations in the court.
They consistently stated that Shivali was living a "peaceful and happy" married life and denied any dowry demand or harassment by the accused.
The witnesses further attributed her death to depression caused by her child's serious medical condition.
The court noted that the testimonies of close relatives, considered the most material witnesses, revealed no evidence of cruelty or dowry-related harassment “soon before her death,” a crucial requirement to establish an offence under Section 304B IPC.
The court observed that the medical evidence confirmed death due to asphyxia caused by hanging.
Giving the benefit of the doubt, the court said this alone was insufficient to implicate the accused without corroborative evidence of cruelty.
