Online Sense is ICDL Arabia's philanthropic arm aimed at raising public awareness on Cyber Safety.

Do you use Twitter? If not, is it because you worry about strangers writing hateful messages to you?

If so, Twitter’s Quality Filter might be relevant to you.

Twitter’s New Feature: Tweet Filtering

In a blog post (2016), Twitter’s product manager Emil Leong wrote about their new notification settings. As of August 18, 2016, Twitter users will have the ability to limit notifications to people they follow on Twitter.

They also introduced a ‘quality filter’ setting. Twitter claims that this feature will improve the quality of tweets users see. This means that people will see fewer duplicate tweets (i.e. spam) and more interesting tweets.

This will be available in both your Notifications timeline.

Along with these two additions, Twitter also made it easier to change your settings… in your notifications tab. (Scroll down to the bottom of this article to find out how to change these settings step by step.)

Why Use Twitter’s Quality Filter?

Twitter launched these new features as a solution to the cyber bullying issues that have taken place on the site. These two options allow you (the Twitter user) to worry less about receiving tweets from strangers, particularly hate messages from cyber bullies and online predators.

“We’ve designed the feature to learn and improve over time so what we’re rolling out is just a start, and we’ll keep you posted on updates in the future.”

How to Turn on the Quality Filter for Your Twitter Profile

Simply follow these four steps:
1. Tap ‘Notifications’ in the navigation bar.
Twitter Quality Filter Screenshot: Click on Notifications

2. Tap the ‘Settings’ icon and go to ‘Notifications.’
Twitter Quality Filter Screenshot: Settings Notifications

3. Switch on the ‘Quality Filter’ to control the tweets you see OR choose to receive notifications ‘Only from people you follow.’
Twitter Quality Filter Screenshot

Twitter Quality Filter Screenshot - Only People You Follow

4. Press the ‘Done’ button to save your changes.

Our Recommendation

We believe this is a step in the right direction for Twitter. It now gives you the option to see tweets from people you follow.

To prevent cyber bullying from happening on the platform, the best option is to limit your notifications to only those you follow. That way, the only people who can contact Twitter are those who follow you.

(Remember that people you follow do not need to follow you back.)

Twitter’s quality filter presents a good alternative option, but as Mr. Leong implied, it still needs work. Cyber bullying is a major issue on Twitter, to the point where it is actually affecting several celebrities.

What Are Your Thoughts?

Does this help Twitter users? Will you use Twitter more often? Tell us what you think.