Twitter Gets Blowback After Testing Profanity Warning

Twitter, notoriously prone to flirting with features nobody wants, has trotted out yet another well-intentioned feature that instantly caused outrage among its userbase.

On Tuesday, Twitter announced it was testing out a feature that would allow users to reconsider replies that included profanity, lest they say something that might result in them getting suspended.

When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean. To let you rethink a reply, we’re running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020

What followed was a completely predictable, expletive-laden backlash that mostly involved users telling Twitter things it could do to itself.

hahahaha eat shit shut the fuck up https://t.co/nBGuSpU3nh

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) May 5, 2020

Eat unwashed ass, @Jack. https://t.co/EeFgo703XM

— David Simon (@AoDespair) May 5, 2020

Jack Dorsey likes to pee into his own butthole https://t.co/GjXsXtslru

— Listen to onbeliefpod & @ongriefpodcast Li'l 🌳 (karengeier) May 5, 2020

Others were all-too-ready to remind Twitter that it often does not address its widespread problem with hate speech and nazis using its platform.

I will watch my fucking language when twitter bans the fucking Nazis https://t.co/zQBjyMRBQx

— 🚩Auntie Shepherd🏴 (@NeolithicSheep) May 5, 2020

how the fuck will this fix the Nazi problem 🥴 https://t.co/7aPx6FURXh

— Same Old Karen From The Block (@IWriteAllDay_) May 5, 2020

how the fuck will this fix the Nazi problem 🥴 https://t.co/7aPx6FURXh

— Same Old Karen From The Block (@IWriteAllDay_) May 5, 2020

I'll ask Twitter to do something about fucking white supremicists, sexual harassers, anti-vaxxers, and people who misuse "cache" and "cachet" before sending my fucking tweets. We'll see who gets an answer first. https://t.co/0Pl9gJB8I7

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) May 5, 2020

So far, the feature seems to be doing a bang-up job.

ooo twitter warns you now when you’re abt to say smth controversial 🤭 so twitter was it the as$ or the s!apping that’s a bad word? pic.twitter.com/KyDn7qSXl3

— 𝗁𝖺𝗇🃏 (@lipjikook) May 6, 2020