Online abuse is a big problem that social networks in particular find hard to deal with. They have to come up with new policy and product changes to ensure that their users can interact with others without the fear of being harassed or abused online. Twitter today announced a couple of its own policy and product changes to curb abuse, one new feature that it’s testing out will allow the microblogging service to identify suspected abusive tweets and limit their reach.
Twitter has updated its violent threats policy and now prohibition is not just limited to “direct, specific threats of violence against others.” It says that this policy was unduly narrow and limited its ability to act on certain kinds of threatening behavior.
Under the new policy prohibitions now extends to “threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others.” It’s introducing an additional enforcement option which gives its support team the ability to lock abusive accounts for certain periods of time.
This new change gives Twitter leverage in a number of contexts like when multiple people start harassing a particular person or a group of people.
The product feature that it’s testing will allow the company to limit the reach of suspected abusive tweets. This feature will rely upon multiple signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse.
Ultimate goal, according to Twitter, is to make the microblogging network a safe place for “the widest possible range of perspectives.”
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