Twitter briefly disabled a suicide prevention feature

Suicide prevention back on Twitter. The American social network is backpedaling after having removed for a few hours its security function aimed at preventing suicides and helping people in distress. The prevention messages were reinstated on Saturday December 24, according to the Reuters agency, which relays the information.

Prevent self-destructive behavior

For several years, Twitter has displayed a warning message after searching for certain terms. The goal is to prevent self-destructive behavior. In France, the function redirects to the organization SOS Amitié, a local partner of Twitter. A listening number is set up for people thinking of ending their lives.

Named #ThereIsHelp, the function had been temporarily removed in recent days. According to two people familiar with the matter at Twitter, quoted by Reuters, the services were deactivated at the instigation of Elon Musk, the new owner of the social network. When this deletion was announced on Friday, a slew of organizations and industry experts strongly criticized this decision.

“If this decision is emblematic of a shift in policy that they no longer take these issues seriously, it is extraordinarily dangerous. This goes against Musk’s previous pledges to prioritize child safety“, reacted Alex Goldenberg, expert at the Network Contagion Research Institute.

Twitter evokes a “optimization“

A few hours after the outcry of mental health specialists, the social network finally decided to restore its prevention tools. Ella Irwin, head of trust and safety at Twitter, confirmed the removal, while calling it “temporary“. Through this operation, Twitter sought to “correct the relevance and [à] optimize the size of prevention messages.” “We know they are useful and our intention was not to delete them permanently“, assured the manager.

For his part, Elon Musk was quick to react. The American billionaire has formally denied the removal of this function. After Reuters published the information on Friday, Musk said it was a “false information“. Prevention messages are “always displayed“, he assured. And to recall: “Twitter does not prevent suicide.”

According to the findings of several experts, the prevention of self-harm behavior and suicide was back on the platform this weekend.