Twitter is continuing to take on the rampant abuse that has plagued the social network over the years by introducing new filtering tools and automatic troll detection.
As an open social network where anyone can talk to anyone (unless accounts are private), abuse has been a major problem on Twitter. As the public outcry has grown, so too has Twitter’s interest in finally doing something about it.
In a blog post on Wednesday, Twitter announced that their system will now “identify accounts as they’re engaging in abusive behavior, even if this behavior hasn’t been reported to us. Then, we’re taking action by limiting certain account functionality for a set amount of time, such as allowing only their followers to see their Tweets.”
They offer one example: “This change could come into effect if an account is repeatedly Tweeting without solicitation at non-followers or engaging in patterns of abusive behavior that is in violation of the Twitter Rules.”
There are also several new filtering tools which allow you to mute people “without a profile photo, unverified email addresses or phone numbers.”
“Without a profile photo” refers to anyone who has a Twitter Egg as their profile picture, an image that has become associated with trolls. In fact, I proposed the mute eggs idea last summer:
Twitter should auto mute anyone with a Twitter Egg as a profile pic appearing in your mentions. We’d all see so much less trolling/stupidity
Article Continues Below— Andrew Sims (@sims) July 8, 2016
Finally, Twitter is allowing you to mute keywords, users, hashtags, etc. directly from your home timeline, and they’re promising to communicate “more clearly about the actions we take” by keeping in touch with you if you report abuse.
More can be learned over on their blog. Farewell, Twitter eggs!
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