Introducing Twitter’s Global Impact Report
We’re excited to share our first Global Impact Report, a cohesive representation of the work we’ve done
across environment, social, and governance issues since our founding in 2006.
Now more than ever, building trust through transparency and accountability is key to delivering on our purpose of
serving the public conversation. Over the years, we’ve been open about our work and where we’re making
an impact - from our quarterly
I&D Reports that highlight our commitments to inclusion and diversity, to our Transparency Reports which reflect our
work to protect the integrity of the conversation on Twitter.
This report aims to bring these and other initiatives together in one place, showcasing Twitter’s work across
corporate responsibility, sustainability, and philanthropy. It’s a big step in our commitment to sharing more
about the work we know is important to the people we serve - from our employees, or Tweeps, to partners, investors,
and the people around the world who use Twitter.
For our 2020 report, we’ve organized our work into five key areas:
- Our Service: Earning trust is one of our core operating principles, and it begins with how we
act. We want people to have safe, inclusive, and authentic conversations on Twitter and are working to promote
healthy conversations on our service while continuing to grow our audience and our business in socially
responsible ways.
- Governance: We’re committed to sound corporate governance, strong ethics, and compliance
practices, which promote the long-term interests of the diverse communities we serve and help build public trust
in Twitter.
- People and Culture: We often say that Tweeps come for the purpose and stay for the people,
along with the unique experience and knowledge gained from working at Twitter. This includes building a company
and culture that reflects the incredibly vibrant and diverse conversations happening on our service every day.
- Twitter for Good: Strengthening our communities is core to our social impact philosophy, and
our goal is to bring our company and community together as a positive societal force around the world.
- Planet: Climate change is one of the greatest challenges of our time. We’re committed to
protecting the environment, reducing our carbon footprint, and fostering long-term sustainability projects to
play our part.
Our hope is that by presenting and organizing our work in this way, we’ll be able to clearly showcase what
we’ve done and provide a roadmap of where we’re headed.
Download our 2020 Global Impact Report
What’s Next
We’ve made an impact - both as a company and as a service supporting the public conversation globally.
While our work is not done, we’re confident that our progress and our clarity of purpose position us
well to continue making an impact and improving the health of the public conversation. We’ll continue
to make progress on these important initiatives and share more about our efforts in the future.
In the meantime, we’ll keep listening to your ideas and feedback. We’re grateful to our dedicated
employees, our extraordinary NGO partners, and the diverse communities around the world that we serve. We
will make Twitter and the world stronger, together.
Health
We want people to feel safe on Twitter. Building a Twitter free of abuse, spam and other things that distract from the public conversation is among our top priorities. Our health work is designed to help people feel safe being a part of the conversation and to help them find credible information on our platform. While there’s more work to be done, we’ve made strides in creating a healthier service.
Our Work
Twitter is the place where people express their real thoughts, real feelings, and real selves. Diverse voices participating in the public conversation is what makes Twitter unique. To better serve our purpose, we are committed to increasing the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation by continuously updating our rules, processes, technology, and tools to ensure all people can participate in the public conversation freely and safely.
Here are our latest Health announcements:
To view all updates related to health, please visit the Twitter Blog here.
The Twitter Transparency Report
We’re continually striving to be more proactive and open in the work we do to serve the public conversation on Twitter. Part of that effort is our biannual Twitter Transparency Report, which we’ve produced since July 2012 to share global trends across a number of areas of our enforcement on Twitter, including the Twitter Rules and legal requests we receive.
We have reimagined and rebuilt our biannual Twitter Transparency Report site to become a comprehensive Twitter Transparency Center. Our goal with this evolution is make our transparency reporting more easily understood and accessible to the general public.
The full archive of reports can be found here. To see past results, click on a specific topic (for example, “Removal requests”) and access the dropdown box on the upper right section of that page to select a six-month period.
The Twitter Privacy Center
By using Twitter, you've shown us that you trust us with your data. We do not take that trust lightly. That’s why we’ve created the Twitter Privacy Center, a destination to provide more clarity around what we’re doing to protect the information you share with us. The Twitter Privacy Center will host helpful information about our privacy and data protection work: related initiatives, announcements, new privacy products, and communication about security incidents.
The Twitter Trust and Safety Council
The Twitter Trust and Safety Council provides input on our safety products, policies, and programs. Twitter works with safety advocates, academics, and researchers; grassroots advocacy organizations that rely on Twitter to build movements; and community groups working to prevent abuse.
The full list of safety partners can be found here.
Business Practices
Earning trust is one of our core operating principles, and it begins with how we conduct ourselves. We believe in growing our business in a socially responsible way.
Our Policies
Twitter accounts must meet certain criteria in order to be eligible to participate in Twitter Ads and use our suite of advertising products. Advertisers on Twitter are responsible for their Twitter Ads. This means following all applicable laws and regulations, creating honest ads, and advertising safely and respectfully.
Our full Ads Policies can be viewed on this page.
Recent Updates
We regularly review and update our Ads Policies to create a safer and more positive experience for the customers we serve, both advertisers and the people who use our service. Here are our latest announcements:
The Global Alliance for Responsible Media
Twitter joined 16 other of the world’s leading advertisers to announce the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an unprecedented, global collaboration with agencies, media companies and platforms, and industry associations to rapidly improve digital safety. Read more here:
New MajorityReady Coalition
Led by GroupM, and comprised of Disney, Google, iHeartMedia, Meredith Corporation, NBCUniversal, Twitter, Univision and Viacom, the coalition’s aim is to help brands better adapt to the changing U.S. demographics and assist in developing their audience planning and media strategies accordingly. Read more about it here.
Supplier Diversity
Twitter is driving towards a more diverse set of suppliers. Since launching this program, much of our work has focused on understanding our current spend with diverse suppliers, the resources that buyers need to be successful, and the unique value Twitter can bring to diverse suppliers and our community partners.
We developed program objectives for 2019 and beyond focused on:
- Connecting qualified diverse-owned businesses with Twitter
- Establishing strategies that help suppliers better compete for Twitter business
- Setting near and long-term diverse supplier spend goals
- Developing accurate and timely diverse spend reporting
- Promoting Twitter’s commitment to Supplier Inclusion
People + Culture
At Twitter, we see an incredibly vibrant and diverse conversation on our service every day, and we strive to reflect that within our company. We know our best work comes from having a diverse workforce and we are constantly seeking new perspectives to make our company stronger.
The Inclusion and Diversity Report
We selected “Lift as we rise” as the theme for our 2021 Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility Report because, throughout our journey, progress has required that we never lose sight of the people and communities for whom we do this work. All year, we focused on applying an equity lens across every stage of the Tweep lifecycle: recruitment and hiring, onboarding, compensation and pay transparency, learning and development, and our work cultivating a truly inclusive environment across teams and regional geographies –– with our world class Business Resource Groups at the center. In short, we elevated our approach. And while we’ve got a lot of work left to do, we’re proud of our progress in 2021.
Read more in our 2021 Inclusion & Diversity Report here.
Environment
People around the world use Twitter to raise awareness about the climate crisis, organize for change in their communities, and connect with others passionate about protecting our planet.
We know that people use the service to find credible information during global crises. Now you can follow the Climate Change Topic to find personalized conversations about climate change, including Tweets from environmental and sustainability organizations, environmental activists, and scientists. These Tweets will appear right in your home timeline when you follow the Topic.
Addressing the climate emergency requires collaboration, community, and widespread mobilization. Through #AdsForGood grants, events, on-service support, and trainings, we’re partnering with organizations promoting and amplifying environmental conservation and sustainability. These include Earth Day Network, United Nations (UN) Environment Programme, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, UN Development Programme, Greenpeace, Voice for the Planet, Let Me Breathe, WWF, 350.org, FridaysForFuture, We Don’t Have Time, Climate Reality Project, and others.
We’ve also made new environmental commitments and expanded Twitter’s sustainability efforts. In partnership with the Science Based Target Initiative (SBTi), we’ve committed to significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, paving the way for our net-zero journey.
We recognize that transparency and accountability should be central to our approach to sustainability. We’re excited about the SBTi pledge because it advances Twitter’s environmental efforts in a clear and measurable way.
We’re committed to protecting the environment, reducing our carbon footprint, and using our service to make a positive difference in the world. We continue to work toward our goal of achieving 100% carbon-neutral power sourcing in our current data centers by the end of 2022. We’ve partnered with Cool Effect, a nonprofit organization that helps offset emissions from our data centers and employee travel, to fund green projects around the world. So far, 92% of our global offices have achieved the "Green Building Certified" standard, with more to come.
We’re mobilizing our workforce around the globe to participate and to make change at Twitter, but we know there’s more to do. That’s why, we’re ramping up our sustainability goals company-wide.
Read more about our sustainability initiatives: Elevating credible climate change information this World Environment Day