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Twitter Announces New System For Reporting Trolls

Giuseppe Macri Tech Editor
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Twitter on Tuesday announced a new improvement designed to streamline the reporting of abusive users after months of criticism spawned by harassment of gaming industry personalities and celebrities on the social media platform.

“Everything that happens in the world, happens on Twitter – to the tune of more than 500 million Tweets every day,” the company wrote in a blog post Tuesday, adding that some of that content can sometimes turn abusive.

“So, we’re improving the reporting process to make it much more mobile-friendly, require less initial information, and, overall, make it simpler to flag Tweets and accounts for review.”

The changes announced in the post include reducing the number of steps users have to go through to report abuse, and open up reporting to users not directly involved in harassment they may observe. Users will also have more control over blocking other users via a dedicated listing page, and blocked users will no longer be able to view the profile pages of users they’ve been blocked by.

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The new process does away with the previous nine-part questionnaire users would submit for manual review, which open Twitter trolls up to a range of punishments from warnings to temporary and permanent bans. On the company side the new system will also prioritize abuse reports based on the number of reports received from users, prompting a faster response from Twitter moderators for frequently flagged users.

Twitter’s improvements come after months of reported abuses against women involved in the Gamergate movement in the gaming industry and the highly publicized attacks on Zelda Williams, who eventually left Twitter altogether following the death of her father, comedian Robin Williams.

Tuesday’s changes will roll out out to all users in the coming weeks.

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Giuseppe Macri