Twitter Troll Problem: Platform Introduces New Changes To Curb Abuse

Twitter is rolling out new features to curb online abuse, the company’s Vice President of Engineering, Ed Ho, announced Tuesday.

Last week, Ho hinted new changes were coming to Twitter saying the company was “moving with more urgency than ever” to make the platform safer.

“Making Twitter a safer place is our primary focus,” he said. “We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic. That’s put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices. We won’t tolerate it and we’re launching new efforts to stop it.”

The new feature comes after previous steps from Twitter to ease online abuse, including those announced in November, which expanded Twitter’s “mute” function and made it easier for users to report abuse. Last week, Twitter introduced another feature which allows you to report Tweets that mention you, even if the author has blocked you.

Now, Twitter is bringing three new changes to the platform: stopping the creation of new abusive accounts, strengthening safer search results and hiding “potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets.”

Safer Search Results

Twitter said it’s working on a “safe search” feature, which removes posts that include sensitive content and tweets from users that you have blocked or muted. However, if you still want to find the content you can, but it won’t be on the top of your search results.

Cracking Down On Banned Users

Twitter said it will do a better job to identify users who had their accounts permanently suspended and will stop them from creating new accounts.

“This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others,” Twitter said.

Those banned from Twitter includes Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor at the conservative news website Breitbart. He was banned after he viciously attacked Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones with racist and sexist remarks. Jones reported Yiannopoulos for the abuse and Twitter banned him in July. Twitter also banned numerous alt-right accounts in November, including that of white nationalist/activist Richard Spencer. However, his account was reinstated about a month later. During the New England Patriots win Sunday at the Super Bowl Spencer tweeted "I'm proud of the NFL's Whitest team! "

Hiding Abusive Tweets

Twitter said it has been working on identifying and “collapsing” abusive and low-quality replies. This will help bring up more relevant conversations forward instead of abusive tweets. If you still want to see the tweet replies you will be able to find them when you set out to look for them. This feature will be implemented in the coming weeks, the company said.

These three changes against online abuse are just the beginning.

“In the days and weeks ahead, we will continue to roll out product changes – some changes will be visible and some less so,” Twitter said.