Twitter makes it easier to appeal decisions about bad behavior

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Twitter is making it easier for people to appeal decisions about bad behavior on its platform.

The company is launching a new appeals process inside its app so people can ask the company to reconsider its decisions after a report has been made. Twitter has had an appeals process in place in the past, but it wasn’t accessible in its app and response time could be slow. 

That’s now changing, it says.

“We move quickly to enforce our rules, but sometimes we don’t have the full context and can make mistakes,” the company tweeted. “To fix that, we added a way for people to appeal our decision in the app and have been able to get back to people 60% faster than before.”

With the change, those who have had an account suspended or put in “time out,” are given the chance to appeal the decision and provide additional “context” on what was said. For instance, in Twitter’s example, a user explains that a tweet that sounds like a violent threat was actually a joking reference to a video game. 

Users can also appeal decisions when Twitter hasn’t taken an action, a company spokesperson said. So if a user reported a tweet, and Twitter says it doesn’t break its rules, they can appeal to explain why they believe it does.

It’s not clear exactly how Twitter uses this additional information re-evaluate decisions, or how often it changes course as the result of an appeal. But making appeals easier could help appease Twitter users who believe the company has been too heavy-handed in enforcing its rules since it began cracking down on abuse on its platform. 

Twitter has long been criticized for not explaining the reasoning behind its decisions. And lack of information about why Twitter decides to ban or suspend certain accounts has contributed to the spread of conspiracy theories that the company “shadow bans” conservatives and others groups, despite repeated denials from Twitter execs.

But Twitter has been trying to increase transparency around how it enforces its rules. Last month, the company’s head of trust and safety said she would like to publish case studies, to publicly explain Twitter’s reasoning for banning high profile accounts.