Twitter requires users to verify birthdate before viewing sensitive content
TECHDIGEST – Twitter will be asking users to verify their birthdate before being permitted to view sensitive content, a report said.
TechCrunch reported that Twitter aims to filter sensitive content to prevent users under 18 from viewing inappropriate material by asking users to verify their birthdates.
“We’re constantly iterating on our work to give people more choice and control over their experience, as well as to make Twitter safer for everyone,” a Twitter spokesperson said.
“We’re slowly rolling out a feature to aid in restricting certain sensitive content from people who are under 18 years old or have not submitted their date of birth.”
While Twitter is yet to disclose if this will be a global policy, the company expanded its safety policy in November 2021 with a number of measures to ‘protect’ users.
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The updated safety policy disallows users from posting photos and videos of private people without their permission. This was announced a day after 37-year-old Parag Agrawal took over as the CEO, replacing Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
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“Under our existing policy, publishing other people’s private information, such as phone numbers, addresses, and IDs, is already not allowed on Twitter,” Twitter said in a blog post, adding that “threatening to expose private information or incentivizing others to do so” will also be prohibited on the platform.
Twitter noted that the safety policy was part of its “ongoing efforts to build tools with privacy and security at the core” and hinted that it is “updating our existing private information policy” hence the introduction of birthdate verification before viewing sensitive contents.
A number of users have questioned Twitter’s privacy practices and the introduction of birthdate verification to access sensitive content, saying it could be for the purpose of ad circulation.
Critics added that the introduction of the new policy will increase the pool of ‘fake accounts’ as users are likely to lie about their ages to access the sensitive content.
