Twitter plans ‘completely new approach to abuse’
Social media network cracking down again as complaints mount
Twitter on Tuesday rolled out its latest safeguards to fight abuse on the platform, a problem that has turned away some users and made it less attractive to potential bidders.
Chief among the changes: preventing people who have been permanently suspended from Twitter from creating new accounts, focusing in particular on accounts created “only to abuse and harass others,” Ed Ho, Twitter’s vice president of engineering, said in a blog post.
Stung by criticism Twitter has allowed harassment and abuse to spread unchecked and under growing pressure from Wall Street, CEO Jack Dorsey has pledged “a completely new approach to abuse.”
Ho said last week the company will keep working on combating abuse “until we’ve made a significant impact that people can feel.”
“Safe search” results are being
turned on for users. These results remove tweets that contain sensitive content such as violent or pornographic images or language or tweets that come from blocked or muted accounts. And Twitter is working to identify and “collapse” potentially abusive and “low-quality” replies to tweets.
Twitter said last week users can report tweets that mention them even if the user has blocked them. Officials say to expect more updates in coming weeks.
The reason for the flurry of updates? Abuse has taken a sharp toll on Twitter, which reports fourth-quarter financial results Thursday. Walt Disney Co. decided not to pursue a bid for Twitter, partly out of concern about bullying on the service. The lack of interest from potential acquirers cranked up pressure on Twitter management, which has fallen out of favor with Wall Street.
The service known for its 140character messages has struggled to broaden its appeal and bring in ad dollars while the fortunes of established competitors such as Facebook have soared and newer entrants such as Snapchat and Facebook-owned Instagram have gained traction.
Twitter, on the other hand, is being forced to retrench, discontinuing its Vine mobile app and coming off a second round of cuts after it let go 8% of its workforce a year ago. The company has said it’s targeting profitability in 2017.
For years, Twitter billed itself as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.” But as it grew, that hands-off approach contributed to a dramatic rise in abuse, harassment and hate speech. People don’t have to use their real names. And with that anonymity has come racist, sexist and antiSemitic taunts and even fullfledged campaigns from trolls.
Former CEO Dick Costolo recently expressed regret for not working aggressively to eradicate abuse on Twitter years ago.