Twitter is testing changes to the way it handles reported tweets

Twitter has announced that it is testing a new method for reporting tweets, which it claims would make it simpler for users to report abusive or suspicious conduct. The solution, which is now being tested with a limited sample of users in the United States, simplifies the existing reporting procedure by eliminating the need for a person reporting a tweet to choose from a list of pre-selected descriptors of what rule the tweet is breaking. Instead, it will ask the user what happened in a "symptoms-first" approach to obtain more detailed information, according to the business.

The blog article utilized the scenario of a patient in an emergency room; instead of asking, "Is your leg broken?" the doctor instead asks, "Where does it hurt?" Asking someone to identify a specific condition or symptom, according to Brian Waismeyer, a data scientist on the health user experience team managing the new approach, isn't an effective method to figure out what's wrong. "What they're going to do well if they're walking in to get care is describe what's happening to them right now," he said of the patient with the fractured leg.