Twitter insists it is winning the troll war

TWITTER said it is winning the war on internet trolls amid claims abusive behaviour is hampering the social media site from catching up with Facebook.

Bruce Daisley, the head of Twitter in Europe, said the site has given its 320 million users new tools to protect them from those who post inflammatory comments and harass others.

People are also being encouraged to share lists of blocked users to help expose the worst offenders, he said.

Other measures include contacting suspected trolls to make it clear that “what they do here exists in the real world”, Mr Daisley said in a newspaper interview.

There has been a large increase in the number of trolls being reported, and people feel a lot safer, he claimed. Twitter, which celebrates 10 years since its inception next year, is lagging behind Facebook which has more than a billion users.

Many celebrity users have closed their accounts because of abuse.

In February, Dick Costolo, who was then chief executive, admitted Twitter “sucked” at dealing with trolls.

But Mr Daisley said: “We have spent longer and put more effort into user safety than any other issue.

“The measures we’ve taken correlate directly with a reduction in the amount of bad behaviour on the platform.”

Security-related complaints are viewed “really seriously” and “anything that’s reported to us, we investigate”, Mr Daisley said.