This Chrome Extension Lets You Hide Toxic Comments

Tune is a new experimental Chrome extension which lets you control the comments you see online. If you’re sick of seeing vile and vitriolic comments sections you can make them disappear altogether. Or you can set the volume anywhere between “Quiet” and “Loud”.

Tune has been developed by Jigsaw, a subsidiary of Alphabet. Tune leverages Perspective, which “uses machine learning to spot abusive language”. Because online comments aren’t generally filled with people expressing love for their fellow human beings.

Remove the Toxicity From Online Comments

Tune enables you to set the level of toxicity you’re comfortable with. Which is the key when people have different tolerance levels for attacks, insults, and profanity. And those people who have really had enough can remove the comments altogether.

Once installed, you turn a dial to change the volume of the comments you can see. Turning the dial right down hides all comments. While turning it all the way up allows everything through, no matter how toxic it may be. You can also pitch it somewhere in the middle.

Toxic comments can ruin a conversation online. Today we’re releasing Tune, an experimental Chrome Extension that helps you control what toxic comments you see. Try it out here: https://t.co/rOlIPs6JnL pic.twitter.com/wYYJmilh5j

— Jigsaw (@Jigsaw) March 12, 2019

Tune currently works on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and Disqus, but could be expanded to other platforms over time. However, Jigsaw has clearly chosen those platforms for a reason, as all have been known to have problems with toxicity in the past.

Jigsaw is keen to point out that Tune is experimental, which means it “still misses some toxic comments and incorrectly hides some non-toxic comments”. However, Tune is open source and available on Github, which means you can get involved in its development.

Download: Tune for Chrome

Tune Gives the Power Back to Individuals

Platforms can and should be doing more to police conversations that cross the line into illegality. But that does nothing to remove toxic comments that don’t break community guidelines. Tune gives the power back to individual users.

It should be noted that Tune cannot combat the targeted harassment of individuals, which is another issue altogether. However, by helping make the most toxic comments less visible, Tune could help deter the trolls who get a kick out of ruining someone’s day.

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