Twitter pledges to be more vigilant on stopping abuse

The past couple of weeks have been a bit tough for Twitter. While Facebook and other tech firms might be embroiled in privacy concerns, Twitter instead is being hit by criticism that it doesn't do enough to crack down on abuse thrown back and forth among its users.

On Saturday though, Twitter senior director of trust and safety, Del Harvey, and the UK's general manager, Tony Wang, announced via a blog post, they Twitter could and would do more to stop users from abusing one another.

First off, the Twitter rules have been updated, to clarify Twitter's position. “We do not tolerate abusive behaviour. We want people to feel safe on Twitter, and we want the Twitter Rules to send a clear message to anyone who thought that such behaviour was, or could ever be, acceptable,” the pair said.

You can follow me @jonwhoopty, you ****s

There are also plans to introduce an “in-tweet” report button, that will allow for the simple reporting of abusive or threatening messages. As it stands, users that want to complain about another, have to go through the obfuscated help centre and file a report against a person. “Starting next month, this button will also be available in our Android app and on Twitter.com,” they said.

Twitter also pledges to add more staff to handle abuse claims and said that it would “explore new ways of using technology to improve everyone's experience on Twitter.”

Kitguru says: I'm glad Twitter is suggesting that it'll allow the community to respond more, instead of suggesting it wouldn't tolerate the use of specific words or try and get the police involved. 

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