Twitter Taking More Active Role in Policing Abusive Behavior
Twitter will proactively find accounts that engage in abusive behavior, even those that haven't been reported, and curb their functionality for a certain period, wrote Ed Ho, vice president-engineering, in a Wednesday blog post. "This change could come into effect…
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if an account is repeatedly Tweeting without solicitation at non-followers or engaging in patterns of abusive behavior that is in violation of the Twitter Rules." One type of action could be allowing only an account's followers to see its tweets. The company will single out accounts only when it's "confident" they are abusive, which is identified through algorithms, he added. The company is also providing more filtering options so users can control what they see for certain accounts like those without a profile photo or unverified email address or phone number. Ho said Twitter is also expanding a "mute" feature, introduced in November, which lets users remove keywords, phrases or entire conversations from their notifications indefinitely or for a certain period. The company will be more transparent and open about accounts or tweets that people have reported as being abusive. "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," wrote Ho.