Twitter Troll Tools

Twitter launches new “mute” and “report abuse” tools to tackle trolls.

15:48 16 November 2016

Twitter has come up with new tools designed to give its users more power to defend themselves against online abuse. 

 

Twitter has long been marred with serious problems with trolls and there have been countless of situations where the social network has been used to spread hate. Examples are the racist and sexist abuse hurled at “Ghostbusters” actress Leslie Jones and vile messages sent to Jamie Bulger’s mother blaming her for his death. The problem is so serious that both Disney and Salesforce have backed out of deals to buy Twitter. 

 

Twitter is now taking action to address the problem head-on with a selection of tools designed to help users cope with online abuse and harassment. These include the “mute” function that enable users to silence not just specific accounts but also keywords, phrases, and even entire conversations. It also offers users a new way to report cases of abuse based on race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or disease. 

 

Twitter's head of trust and safety Del Harvey said in a blog post: "The amount of abuse, bullying, and harassment we've seen across the Internet has risen sharply over the past few years. These behaviours inhibit people from participating on Twitter, or anywhere," 

 

"Abusive conduct removes the chance to see and share all perspectives around an issue, which we believe is critical to moving us all forward. In the worst cases, this type of conduct threatens human dignity, which we should all stand together to protect.

 

"We don't expect these announcements to suddenly remove abusive conduct from Twitter. No single action by us would do that. Instead we commit to rapidly improving Twitter based on everything we observe and learn."