Twitter’s troll crackdown:It’s going to start identifying abuse without it being reported
Twitter has two new weapons in the battle against trolls: not only is it going to start identifying abuse before it is even reported – but it will allow users to mute certain keywords. No more "snowflake" jibes for Twitter users…
Abuse is the social media giant's Achilles heel – trolling has been responsible for some of the company's lowest moments, sparking headlines highlighting the abuse of several female celebrities including, most recently Lily Allen.
In a blog post today Twitter said it will identify accounts as they're engaging in abusive behaviour, then take action by limiting certain account functionality for a set amount of time, such as allowing only their followers to see their tweets.
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"This change could come into effect if an account is repeatedly Tweeting without solicitation at non-followers or engaging in patterns of abusive behaviour that is in violation of the Twitter Rules," it said.
Secondly, the company said it was introducing new filtering options which give users more control over what they say – meaning they can filter out users without a profile photo, with an unverified email address or phone numbers.
Users will also be able to mute certain words from their home timelines for defined time periods – one day, a week, a month or indefinitely.
Finally, it said it was improving its reporting process so users who report harassment get more feedback.
"You will be notified when we’ve received your report and informed if we take further action. This will all be visible in your notifications tab on our app."
Last month $1bn was wiped off the value of Twitter after it admitted it had made losses of $167bn (£135bn).
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