Twitter Finally Addresses Abuse, Makes Changes
In response to harsh criticism, Twitter is finally addressing the issues that make abuse on the social media platform so easy for trolls.
Twitter finds itself in a paradoxical predicament. On the one hand, it is reliably at the center of the world’s political, pop culture and breaking news events. When a US president proclaims major announcements with the platform, no other network or news broadcaster is able to compete with Twitter’s up-to-the-second updates of whatever is driving the conversation.
On the other hand, it is dogged by problems of declining usership, high profile users publicly leaving the network and accusations that the company is either unwilling or unable to reign in the abuse and hatred that often spew across its network.
What To Do?
Twitter has spent months hinting that it was trying to make the necessary changes to clamp down on abuse. Hints include a public Tweet by CEO Jack Dorsey for suggestions on what the company can fix. It seems that Twitter is finally delivering some of what it has long promised.
A slew of new features have been designed and rolled out to address abuse, cyber stalking and fake news trolling on the network. These are all problems that have been obvious on the network for some time. The first round of changes came in November, with several developments being introduced throughout February.
Starving the Trolls
In an announcement unveiling its most recent update, the company released the following statement:
“Making Twitter a safer place is our primary focus. 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. Building on the work we began in November, we’re continuing to work on ways to give people more control over what they see on Twitter.”
Taking A Look At New Features
Only time will tell if these steps will start to reverse the harsh criticism that Twitter has received almost unrelentingly for the past 18 months. But it does seem that it’s a solid start.
So, what are these new features that the company says will fix the problem?
Here is a comprehensive look at what you can expect to see:
Expanding the “mute” function.
While it was previously possible to mute accounts that were spewing abuse, users can now utilize the mute function in the Notifications tab. So if certain key phrases, words or entire threads are particularly hostile, you can simply mute them altogether.
In addition, users will not be notified about conversations or @mentions by accounts they have blocked or muted. This step was a direct request made by many users.
Improving the reporting and response.
Twitter has made it easier to report misconduct and abuse on its platform and has re-trained its team regarding how to deal with various instances of abuse, “including special sessions on cultural and historical contextualization of hateful conduct, and implemented an ongoing refresher program,” according to the platform.
Preventing abusive users from creating new accounts.
Historically, if a troll’s account was shut down, they could simply start another. Now Twitter is making it harder for users who have been permanently suspended from creating new accounts. This step is focused primarily on “accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.”
Making search safer.
Oftentimes the most offensive content is found when you’re searching for something else. “Safe search” allows users to search safely without seeing potentially sensitive or offensive content from blocked and muted accounts.
Favoring the most relevant conversations.
Abusive or low-quality tweets will increasingly be identified and collapsed by moderators so that the high quality conversations and are most relevant to the user will have higher visibility.