Twitter to widen curbs on abusive postings

Microblogger won’t allow harassment or promotion of violence

Twitter adopted further restrictions against violent threats and is working on features aimed at limiting abusive content appearing on users’ feeds.

While Twitter had prohibited “direct, specific threats of violence against others,” the policy is now being changed to include threats of violence or promoting violence, the San Franciscobased company said in a blog post Tuesday. The social network also will be able to suspend the accounts of users suspected of harassing others until they comply with guidelines, and it’s testing a feature that will filter out abusive tweets.

Chief Executive Dick Costolo has stepped up efforts to rein in harassment on Twitter following several incidents of harassment, such as Robin Williams’ daughter’s receiving abusive messages after his death. Keeping users engaged and safe on Twitter is a top priority as he seeks to fuel growth by expanding the number of people and advertisers on the social website.

“The ultimate goal is to ensure that Twitter is a safe place for the widest possible range of perspectives,” Shreyas Doshi, Twitter’s director of product management, wrote in the post.

Meanwhile, Twitter introduced a feature Monday enabling people to send direct, private messages to any user, as long as that user has opted in for the feature.

Previously, users could send private messages only to people who followed them on the platform. That meant both users had to follow each other to have a private exchange. Now people can send and respond to direct messages without having to follow anyone.

Users can opt in by updating their privacy settings on the Twitter website and can stop receiving direct messages from individuals by blocking them.