Twitter has announced some improvements that aim to address the online abuse, hate speech and cyberbullying in the social media platform. This has been an issue for so long. A lot have expressed Twitter to take action and do more. This seems to be a good start for Twitter.
Twitter posted on its blog that they are making progress on controls, reporting and enforcement.
The Upgraded Mute Feature
The mute feature is usually used on Twitter accounts. It allows the user to not see tweets from a certain person. It not as extreme as the block feature. For instance, you can still follow a person's account that you have muted. You are not necessarily unfollowing that person.
They would not even know that you have muted them. This is contrary to blocking where the account is aware that it is blocked. Likewise, it does not let the blocked user follow, tweet or contact you. People who are abused or harassed online normally use the block more than the mute.
With the upgraded mute feature, Twitter is expanding its function. It is now capable of muting keywords, phrases and entire conversations that a user does not want to see in his/her notifications. Apparently, this has been requested by many. Twitter assured that they will make it better and more comprehensive.
Reporting And Enforcement
Though Twitter has a "hateful conduct policy", it does little to stop people from targeting others on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability or disease. The social media platform shared that they are giving more direct way for users to report such conduct.
On the other hand, the improvement in their enforcement involved their support teams. Apparently, they are all re-trained on Twitter's policies. Furthermore, they have also worked on their internal tools and systems. This might help Twitter in effectively dealing with hateful conducts.
Twitter's Constant Battle
Twitter is a platform of free speech. However, some users have gone beyond that. It is already been used to harass and bully others. Facebook is also facing the same issue. The social media platform has the power to actually ban users like YouTube does. In fact, Twitter had permanently banned some accounts for harassing actress Leslie Jones back in July, according to Reuters.
