Twitter Expands Official HIV/AIDS Information Links in Related Search Queries

In celebration of World AIDS Day (12/1), Twitter has expanded its search help prompts to include HIV-related information. Users who browse for HIV and AIDS-related keywords will get new alerts that re-direct them to official health resources and information within the app.

According to Twitter:

“Today we launched another global expansion of our #ThereIsHelp notification service with a dedicated search prompt for HIV-related information across Asia Pacific and the Americas: Brazil, Hong Kong, Indonesia, India, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, SP-Latam, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United States. This notification prompt will provide valuable and authoritative resources around HIV and encourage people to reach out and get help when they need it.”

Twitter already has a number of similar push notifications that connect to official health information about mental health and suicide prevention, vaccination, child sexual exploitation, and other topics. With infection rates soaring during the pandemic, health officials around the world are working to promote awareness of AIDS and HIV.

As per the Kaiser Family Foundation data, the number of persons living with HIV worldwide grew considerably over the past decade, from 30.7 million in 2010 to 38 million in 2019, while limitations put in place to curb the spread of COVID-19 have made it increasingly difficult for patients to access adequate treatment in many places, amplifying the effects.

World Aids Day provides another opportunity to keep HIV awareness in the forefront of people's minds and to emphasize that, despite recent improvements in treatment, the fight against the infection is far from ended. Furthermore, Twitter is introducing a special red ribbon hashflag to raise awareness even further.

From November 24th to December 5th, the hashflag, which features the World AIDS Day symbol, will be automatically applied to tweets that contain the relevant hashtag.

It's an essential effort from Twitter and health authorities all across the globe, because, similar to climate change, while other, more urgent problems have seized global consciousness in recent years, other, substantial societal issues still exist and are creating big repercussions, in many forms, outside the boundaries of the current pandemic.

Moreover, it may appear that we've moved past the worst effects of some of these, but we won't be completely free of them unless we can all commit to raising awareness and mitigating dangers that could exacerbate the spread.

World Aids Day serves as a reminder of this, as well as the continuous fight against the terrible disease.