Towards 'Building A Safer Twitter'
Fighting Online Abuse One Step At A Time
Twitter had received a lot of criticism recently regarding the darker side of the social network. Amidst the usual tweets about what people had for lunch, Twitter is also being used to harass and threaten users. Because you don't actually need to use your real name, like Facebook, a lot of users would hide behind a user name to send abusive tweets.After receiving a lot of backlash, because their harassment policies really weren't clear enough, it took a step towards trying to clean up Twitter, partnering up with Woman, Action and the Media. But it has now finally taken steps to properly deal with the harassment present on their social media network. They have perfected the way you report people on their website.
The new system makes it a lot easier for users to report online abuse, as well as letting them describe specifically what sort of abuse is being directed at them. When you decide to block an account, you can explain why you've come to this decision. The options range from: 'this account is annoying', 'this is a spam account' to 'this user is abusive'.
If blocking a person isn't enough, you can also report them. The options are a lot more specific than before. You can choose from a range options: 'Being disrespectful or offensive', 'Harassing me' or 'Threatening violence and physical harm'. Not only has Twitter updated it's reporting tool, it has also changed how they are being dealt with, behind the scenes. This probably means that they will respond to certain kinds of harassment quicker than they used to.
Twitter have also announced changes regarding to how you can deal with blocked users. Before this update, there was not one page where you could view all the users you had previously blocked. But now you can! This allows a lot more flexibility with the blocked user settings and Twitter will be rolling out small updates within the next few weeks.
Furthermore, now blocked users won't be able to view your profile at all. Making it a lot more difficult for them to send you abusive content. Obviously they could still create a new account on another email, so the block could only be temporary. But still it's a big improvement,
Finally, Twitter are taking some major steps towards making their platform a lot safer. At the moment, the updates are only available for a few accounts but will be rolling out for all users in the upcoming weeks.
Laura is a recent graduate from University of East Anglia in Film and Television Studies, currently interning as a content writer but hoping to one day live off her writing. Follow her @LauraAtSMF.
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Towards 'Building A Safer Twitter'
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Reviewed by Anonymous
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Tuesday, December 09, 2014
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Anonymous
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