Twitter is getting higher at moderating its platform. That’s one of many important takeaways from the corporate’s most , which it shared on Wednesday. Between July 1st and December thirty first, 2020, Twitter says it took motion towards 964,459 accounts for abusive habits. Compared to the primary six months of 2020, that’s a 142 p.c improve. Over the identical timeframe, Twitter additionally eliminated extra hateful content material. On that entrance, the corporate says it took motion towards 1,126,990 accounts, a 77 p.c improve from the 635,415 accounts it reprimanded within the first half of 2020.

What’s notable right here is that the corporate attributes the latter improve to coverage adjustments it put in place all through 2020. Specifically, it calls out the truth that it started taking motion on “content that incites fear and/or fearful stereotypes about protected categories” on account of an uptick in harassment throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The firm additionally calls out an growth of its hateful conduct coverage in early December that noticed the corporate prohibit language that “dehumanizes” individuals based mostly on their race, ethnicity or nationwide origin. Not talked about within the report — however probably nonetheless one thing that had a constructive impact — is the ban the corporate put in place in July towards hyperlinks to .

In one other a part of the report, Twitter additionally attributes its latest success to higher know-how. As of the second half of final yr, the corporate claims its automated moderation instruments helped it take motion towards 65 p.c of abusive tweets and different habits earlier than somebody needed to flag the content material for its moderators. To put that share in perspective, these instruments have been about by late 2019.

Obviously, Twitter has but to fully cease abuse, harassment and hate speech from happening on its platform, however right this moment’s report exhibits the corporate is a minimum of making progress on its 2019 promise to “.”