Twitter has a problem with abusive tweets. It’s no surprise, and they’ve been moving towards improving how they handle that, as well as handing users more tools to control that as well. They’ve now introduced new controls for users, as well as new automatic detection of abusive tweets.
Twitter says that as well as the mechanisms in place to action reported abusive tweets, they’re also attempting to ‘identify accounts as they’re engaging in abusive behavior, even if this behavior hasn’t been reported to us’. This includes a new algorithm which detects whether users are tweeting at someone who isn’t following them ‘without solicitation’, or ‘engaging in patterns of abusive behavior’. The reaction from Twitter can be to temporarily restrict the users ability to tweet to anyone except their followers.
Reports of abuse to Twitter get more transparency with will be followed up with a notification sent to you with what action has been taken, basically giving you feedback that something is being done about the harassment.
There’s more fine-grained user controls coming soon, with a focus on muting notifications from new accounts, a way that routinely abusive Twitter users attempt to continue their Twitter tirades after being blocked from the service. Controls on muting notifications take new account behaviour into account like muting notifications from users who haven’t confirmed their email or phone number or set a profile picture (goodbye egg accounts) – or more that you don’t follow.
Muting of keywords, phrases, or entire conversations will also get time limits so you can mute notifications from users for a day, a week, a month, or indefinitely.
The updates for control of your account are rolling out over the coming days and weeks, so you may have to wait a while, but they’re coming.
