Twitter cracks down on cyberbullying

PanARMENIAN.Net - Twitter is cracking down on cyberbullying with a series of new measures and a fresh approach, according to Digital Spy.

The site, which has previously faced criticism for its approach to trolling, has widened the type of abuse prohibited in its violent threats policy. It will also lock accounts belonging to cyberbullies for pre-defined periods.

Twitter previously only took action against "direct, specific threats of violence against others", but has now admitted that this approach was "unduly narrow" and limited its ability to act on abuse.

The policy now extends to "threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others".

For any action to be made users will still have to file a complaint, but the company said it has started testing a new feature to help them identify suspected abusive Tweets and limit their reach.

"This feature takes into account a wide range of signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse including the age of the account itself, and the similarity of a Tweet to other content that our safety team has in the past independently determined to be abusive," Twitter's Shreyas Doshi explained in a blog post.

"It will not affect your ability to see content that you've explicitly sought out, such as tweets from accounts you follow, but instead is designed to help us limit the potential harm of abusive content.

"This feature does not take into account whether the content posted or followed by a user is controversial or unpopular."

Abuse has long been an issue that has plagued Twitter, affecting both the public and driving celebrities such as Sue Perkins and Iggy Azalea to quit the social platform most recently.