Twitter responded on Tuesday to the flack it has received for barring the word “bisexual” from appearing in its search results, saying in a series of tweets the “technical issue” stemmed from a list of words that “frequently appear alongside adult content.”
“Searches for certain words related to sexuality did not populate complete results. We apologize for anyone negatively impacted by this bug,” said a message from Twitter’s Support account. “It is not consistent with our values as a company.”
3 / One of the signals we use to identify sensitive media is a list of terms that frequently appear alongside adult content. Many of these words on the list are not inherently explicit, which is why they must be used alongside other signals to determine if content is sensitive.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 7, 2017
Twitter searches for “bisexual” and “bisexuality” come up empty handed, with no results for “video,” and only a few stray tweets for “news” and “photo” searches. Many LGBTQ users on the social platform noticed the dearth of content, bringing it to Twitter’s attention.
Today @Twitter @TwitterSupport introduced a search filter blocking photo search on #bisexual and #bisexuality hashtags (among others). (1/2) pic.twitter.com/W2yGZ0BrXH
— Bi Pride UK (@BiPrideUK) November 4, 2017
Twitter said it’ll be auditing its list of banned terms and “making changes during the next 24 hours to correct this mistake.”
6 / We have audited the list and removed terms that should not have been included. We are making changes during the next 24 hours to correct this mistake. Once we are confident it is completely resolved, we’ll share an update here.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) November 7, 2017
The San Francisco-based company has moved to being more decisive in how it regulates content on its platform. Wired had a look at an internal email last month that showed Twitter will be cracking down on “non-consensual nudity” and “unwanted sexual advances.” The platform will also be looking closer at content that “glorifies” violence and posts from hate groups. And now, you can add tweaking its search results to its list of fixes.