Twitter moving to mute abuse

NEW YORK — Twitter says it is expanding efforts to protect its users from abuse and harassment, the latest milestone in a broader, growing corporate campaign to crack down on online hate.

The social media giant announced this week that it has begun identifying people who have been banned for abusive behavior and it will stop them from creating new accounts. The company said its changes, which also include a new “safe search” feature, will be implemented in the coming weeks.

In July, Twitter banned conservative provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor of the right-wing news site Breitbart News, for “participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals.” Twitter subsequently suspended the accounts of other prominent figureheads of the “alt-right” movement, which has been accused of racism, white nationalism, xenophobia and anti-feminism.

Twitter has been under fire for failing to address hate and abuse on the site since its founding a decade ago. Balancing its reputation as a free speech haven has come into conflict with efforts to protect users.

The crackdown isn’t limited to farright extremists. In August, Twitter said it had suspended about 360,000 accounts over the previous year for violating its policies banning the promotion of terrorism and violent extremism.

But the company says the changes announced Tuesday focus “on abuse and harassment.”

Also on Tuesday, Twitter said it’s creating a safe search feature that removes tweets with potentially sensitive content, and tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results.

Twitter is also making some replies less visible so only the most relevant conversations surface.