UPDATED 02:34 EDT / MARCH 02 2017

APPS

Twitter gets serious on trolls with zero-tolerance anti-abuse measures

Twitter Inc. has taken more serious measures to curb abuse adding a flurry of new crime-fighting tools to the platform, with engineering vice president Ed Ho declaring that making Twitter “a safer place is our primary focus and we are now moving with more urgency than ever.”

Chief Executive Jack Dorsey in December asked Twitter users how the platform might be improved, adding the hashtag #Twitter2017 to the post. This followed some changes to Twitter in November, one of which was to allow users not just to mute certain accounts but to mute keywords, phrases and conversations in notifications.

Now, if users are just tired of hearing one particular word, “Trump” for instance given the proliferation of stories about the new President, users can mute that word for just a day, a week, or forever if they so choose. On Wednesday, Twitter added three more troll-take-down tools.

Twitter said it’s going to put a stop to allowing what it considers the most abusive users to create new accounts after one account has been suspended. Meanwhile, accounts that Twitter’s algorithm tags as abusive will have far less reach. Ho explained that this will happen 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.”

Users can now choose to filter notifications from users that don’t have a profile picture – anonymous accounts that are named eggs because of an egg avatar appearing where there isn’t a photo. Users can now also mute accounts that haven’t had an email address or phone number verified, giving anonymous trolls far less power to bother prospective victims.

Finally, Twitter said it was working on collapsing “low quality replies” and abusive replies. The company offered no description of what might be considered low quality, although it did explain that users will still be able to find those replies at the bottom of the pile.

Image: Flickr

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