Twitter has restore a feature that promotes suicide prevention hotlines and other safety resources to users looking up certain content, after coming under pressure from some users and consumer safety groups over its removal.
As per report, the feature was taken down a few days ago, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said the removal was order by the social media platform’s new owner Elon Musk.
After publication of the story, Twitter head of trust and safety Ella Irwin confirm the removal and call as it temporary.
About 15 hours after the initial report, Elon Musk, who did not initially respond to requests for comment, tweeted “False, it is still there.” In response to criticism by Twitter users, he also tweeted “Twitter doesn’t prevent suicide.“
The feature, known as #ThereIsHelp, places a banner at the top of search results for certain topics.
It has list contacts for support organizations in many countries relate to mental health, HIV, vaccines, child sexual exploitation, COVID-19, gender-based violence, natural disasters and freedom of expression.
The banner return to searches about suicide and domestic violence in multiple countries under terms like “shtwt,” shorthand for “self-harm Twitter.“
Whether the feature had restore for other categories was not clear.
This feature was not appearing for some search queries that Twitter has previously said trigger it, such as “#HIV.“
Twitter bans users from encouraging self-harm, though consumer safety groups have criticize the company for allowing posts that they say violate the policy.
The disappearance of #ThereIsHelp had led some consumer safety groups and Twitter users to express concerns about the well-being of vulnerable users of the platform.
In part due to pressure from such groups, internet services including Twitter, Alphabet’s Google and Meta’s Facebook have for years tried to direct users to well-known resource providers for safety issues.
