Beijing: Twitter informed advertisers in an email on Thursday that it will introduce new controls as early as next week to prevent businesses from having their ads appear above or below tweets containing specific keywords.

The new controls are part of Twitter's effort to reassure and win back advertisers who saw their ads withdrawn from the platform by billionaire Elon Musk in October. This is in response to reports from civil rights organizations that there has been an increase in hate speech since the acquisition, as well as the reinstatement of a number of banned or suspended accounts.

About 90% of Twitter's income comes from selling online advertising. Musk recently blamed a "huge drop in revenue" on civil rights groups that persuaded businesses to pause their Twitter ads.

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A Twitter representative said the platform was looking at hiring its own content moderators, many of whom are employed by third-party vendors, during a call with an advertising industry group on Thursday, according to a source familiar with the talks. have been done.

According to the source, Twitter reps claimed that hiring in-house content moderators would enable the platform to devote more resources to non-English language moderation.

The comments follow Ella Irwin, Twitter's new head of trust and safety, telling Reuters the social media site will rely more heavily on automated content moderation. Irvine said recent layoffs at Twitter, which resulted in a 50% reduction in staff, had little impact on moderators and those focused on important issues such as child safety.

An updated version of Twitter's subscription service called Twitter Blue will debut on Friday, according to an email sent to advertisers on Thursday and examined by Reuters.

With membership, accounts will be able to display a verified checkmark. According to the email, accounts for individuals will be indicated by blue checks, while accounts for businesses and governments will be indicated by gold and gray check marks.

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The email states that the monthly subscription fee will be US$7 for the web and US$11 for Apple devices.
Twitter also notified advertisers that it had removed ads from profiles cited in a Washington Post article published Tuesday that claimed the ads appeared on the Twitter accounts of white nationalists.

The company behind the photo-messaging app Snapchat has suspended its Twitter advertising while looking into the matter, according to a spokesperson for Snap.

In response to Musk's tweet last month that Twitter would reinstate suspended accounts that had not broken the law, Twitter said in an email that the accounts were not part of the "amnesty reinstatement".

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Twitter's note to advertisers states that "we will not reinstate bad actors, spam accounts, and users involved in criminal/illegal activities."
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment after losing several members of its communications team.