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Louis Staples
Oct 29, 2018

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Another day, another Twitter controversy.
But instead of Trump's tweets, Twitter itself is causing controversy. Off the back of the revelation that the man suspected of sending bombs to Trump critics had also been sending death threats via the social media site, people are once again calling on the platform to tackle a culture of online abuse and threatening language.
You might think that Twitter would be unveiling a new set of guidelines or introduce stricter rules, but instead it has reportedly decided to remove the "like" button.
No, we're not sure why either.
The move will apparently be taken to "improve debate". The "like" was introduced in 2015 to replace “favourites”, a star-shaped button that allowed people to bookmark tweets to read later. Though psychologists have claimed that the feature can lead to psychological addition.
Naturally, people have responded to this news the only way they know how: by tweeting. It's fair to say that most people aren't impressed.
What the actual fuck? This is all they could come up with? https://t.co/x7H0ym02lE— Owen Williams ⚡ (@Owen Williams ⚡) 1540813873
I’ve yet to see any proof that anyone at Twitter has ever actually used their own website https://t.co/KstXob6eNN— Ryan Broderick (@Ryan Broderick) 1540814156
WHAT? https://t.co/w2BY4pnMGy https://t.co/GIkRzfr1c1— Marie Le Conte (@Marie Le Conte) 1540813824
I'm so mad about this, you can't take likes away from us, it's been so long, I don't know how to maintain friendshi… https://t.co/m78trooXEy— Marie Le Conte (@Marie Le Conte) 1540814460
@youngvulgarian how will i contextualise my self worth now— Mollie Goodfellow (@Mollie Goodfellow) 1540814215
@psmith Yes, it is definitely the like button and not the whole ignoring threats against other people that is the problem here.— Lisa Tozzi (@Lisa Tozzi) 1540814225
But behind the jokes, there's certainly a serious point to be made about how widespread abuse has become on Twitter. This new move certainly seems unlikely to change that.
Lol at Twitter wondering how it could improve the quality of debate days after further proof has emerged that extre… https://t.co/FljTGM6QyP— Holly Thomas (@Holly Thomas) 1540815639
H/T: Telegraph
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