Together for a Better Internet: Twitter supports #SaferInternetDay 2019

Tuesday 5 February 2019 marks #SaferInternetDay and is an opportunity for everyone around the world to come together with the common goal of creating a safer internet.

The theme for Safer Internet Day 2019 is Together for a Better Internet and to recognize and support this goal, Twitter, in partnership with the Safer Internet Day Coordinating Team, has launched a special emoji in the shape of hands cupping the globe. The emoji appears when people Tweet with the hashtags #SaferInternetDay and #SID2019. The hashtags are available in 12 different languages, including Japanese, Korean, Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), and Bahasa Indonesian.

Improving the collective health of the public conversation - which includes online safety in its many forms - is our number one priority as a company. From our CEO down, it’s part of everyone’s job at Twitter. In 2018, we made more than 70 changes to our product, policies and processes to build a healthier Twitter.

To help people stay safe on Twitter, the changes we made this year enabled us to take action on more abusers who were reported to us in comparison to last year; stop hundreds of thousands of accounts from rejoining after a suspension for abusive behavior; and reduce abuse in conversations.

Additionally, we focused on:

• Introducing new signals, focused on behaviors, into how we present and organize Tweets
• Expanding our team and focusing more resources on our health work, including the acquisition of Smyte
• Gathering public feedback as we developed new policies for the first time
• Hosting our second Trust and Safety Council Summit with online safety experts from around the world
• Rolling out new notices so it’s easier to see when a Tweet was removed for breaking our rules
• Updating our rules to more clearly address specific types of hateful conduct we take action on, such as deadnaming and misgendering

In addition to the changes to Twitter's product, policies and processes, we have partnered with a number of organisations around the world on a range of activities to support online safety in areas such as violent extremism, child sexual exploitation, suicide and self harm, women's safety, LGBTQ safety and many more.  

In Asia Pacific, we are proud to have increased the number of safety partners by 30 percent in the last year. Some examples of those partnerships include:

• Launched #ThereIsHelp in Korea, Australia and Japan, in partnership with Lifeline Korea, Lifeline Australia and the Tokyo Suicide Prevention Center. #ThereIsHelp is a notification service that provides mental health resources to vulnerable people and encourages them to reach out and get help when they need it.
• Also with Lifeline Australia, we launched the #BeALifeline Direct Message chatbot in Australia, which makes Lifeline’s mental health resources easily discoverable, and acts as a touch point for primary caregivers to discreetly request support in times of need.
• In India, we launched our 100th @Tweesurfing video, in partnership with the Centre for Social Research. @Tweesurfing leverages the power and reach of people on Twitter who use the platform for positive social change, by engaging with them via video clips and events across India on the theme of online safety.
• In Indonesia, we are finalising a partnership with Into the Light to launch #ThereIsHelp later this year.
• In Japan, we almost doubled the number of safety partners we work with.
• In Singapore, we formed a partnership with The Samaritans of Singapore and will be launching #ThereIsHelp in the coming months.

We're also using Safer Internet Day as an opportunity to remind people of best practices to keep themselves safe on Twitter and online via a series of blog posts. Keep an eye out this week for more information on:

• How to customise and control what you see on Twitter
• How to manage your privacy on Twitter
• How to keep your Twitter account secure
• Media and information literacy best practices
• What is spam and how to avoid spamming others on Twitter
• What are the Twitter Rules and what happens when you report

Twitter is a long-time supporter of Safer Internet Day and this year, we are proud to continue our association with this important event. We look forward to ongoing conversation with all of our partners, and to continuing our work to find real, lasting solutions to build a safer Twitter.