• by Gavin O'Malley , March 1, 2018

Following Facebook’s lead, Twitter is inviting an open conversation about its impact on the health of individuals and society at large.

“We’re committing Twitter to help increase the collective health, openness and civility of public conversation — and to hold ourselves publicly accountable towards progress,” CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted on Thursday.

Going a step further, Dorsey admitted that he and Twitter’s other cofounders failed to fully consider the network’s potential for harm. “We didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences,” Dorsey admitted. “We acknowledge that now, and are determined to find holistic and fair solutions.”

To date, Dorsey said Twitter has focused most of its efforts on removing content in violation of its terms of service. 

Instead, the company needs to focus building a “systemic framework to help encourage more healthy debate, conversations, and critical thinking,” according to Dorsey. Despite ongoing efforts by Twitter to curb bad actors, the network remains a hotbed for bullies, trolls, spreaders of hate and misinformation specialists.

Twitter is now asking for outside proposals to help figure out how it can promote a healthier environment.

“We are looking to partner with outside experts to help us identify how we measure the health of Twitter, keep us accountable to share our progress with the world and establish a way forward for the long-term,” the company stated.

Among other thought leaders, Twitter said it was inspired by Cortico, a nonprofit research organization, which seeks to understand the concept of measuring conversational health. With the help of Cortico and others, Twitter is confident it can identify indicators of conversational health that are specific to Twitter and its impact on society.

Twitter says it will be accepting proposals up until April 13.

The fresh admissions from Dorsey follow a similar mea culpa from Facebook, last year.

At least among “passive” users, Facebook admitted that it might not be the healthiest pastime for people. Citing a body of independent and internal research, as well as expert opinion, the company said people who spend a lot of time passively consuming information (on Facebook’s News Feed, for instance) report feeling worse afterward.

As part of the effort to address the issue, Facebook said it was seeking counsel from social psychologists, social scientists, sociologists, and scholars to better understand the nature of personal “well-being.”