Twitter will publicly flag tweets that violate its terms of service

There’s nothing like a little public pressure to get someone to clean up their act.

Twitter announced a change on Wednesday that will make it clear when someone has posted a tweet that violates Twitter’s terms of service. 

Now, when Twitter has determined that a Tweet has crossed the line, a gray box with a message will appear, in place of the original tweet, that reads “This tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules.” It will also include a link to Twitter’s terms.

The message will appear both at the URL of the original tweet, and on the tweeter’s profile. So anyone who visits your Twitter profile might see that you posted a message that someone else successfully reported.

That’s right: if Twitter decides a tweet you posted violated its terms of service, everyone who comes to your profile will know.

Tweets will look a bit different for people who reported a tweet, too. When users come across a tweet they’ve previously reported, in place of the offending tweet, users will see a message saying “You reported this tweet” in place of the original.

A Twitter representative said the new policies are part of Twitter’s efforts to make it clearer to users about when and how the platform enforces its rules. Twitter already requires that users delete the tweet that has violated Twitter’s terms of service before they can tweet again. This new initiative just makes that action more visible to everyone.

Twitter has taken several steps in recent months to improve “conversational health” on the platform, including prohibiting “dehumanizing language,” and de-listing content from accounts that exhibit trolling behavior, as identified by Twitter algorithms. That initiative was successful in reducing spam and vitriol, though it did prompt some misinformed outrage from the very people exhibiting the trolling behavior. 

But if just de-listing helped quiet the trolls, imagine what a little public shame can do.