Twitter Reinstates Its Suicide Prevention Feature After Public Outcry

Twitter restored a feature that promoted suicide prevention hotlines and support groups after its CEO Elon Musk faced criticism over the removal.

What Happened: On Friday, Reuters reported the social media platform had taken down the feature dubbed #ThereIsHelp, citing two people familiar with the matter, who said Musk ordered the removal. 

The feature was placed as a banner at the top of search results for certain topics. It listed contacts for support organizations in many countries related to mental health, child sexual exploitation, gender-based violence and freedom of expression, among others.

Twitter's Head of Trust and Safety Ella Irwin confirmed the removal and called it temporary. "

"We have been fixing and revamping our prompts. They were just temporarily removed while we do that," Irwin said in an email. "We expect to have them back up next week."

In response to criticism by Twitter users, Musk tweeted, "False, it is still there." Musk also tweeted, "Twitter doesn't prevent suicide."

What's Next: By Saturday, the banner returned to searches about suicide and domestic violence in multiple countries under terms like "shtwt," shorthand for "self-harm Twitter," Reuters reported.

It is unclear if the feature was restored for other categories because it was not appearing for some search queries that Twitter previously said triggered it, such as "#HIV."

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Photo: Primakov via Shutterstock