Social Media Platform Twitter is gearing up its strategy for fighting abusive “internet trolls” by announcing that it will use behavioural signals to identify harassers on its platform and then limit their visibility of tweets.
Twitter’s present rules already prohibit abuse as the social media platform can block or suspend offenders once someone reports them. Even Users can mute people they find offensive.
The San-Francisco based giant has been into the freewheeling discussion since the times it came to inception in 2006 trying to get rid of harassment and personal attacks that were driving people away from it.
Twitter’s Chief Executive Jack Dorsey informed that the company is now focusing on finding problematic accounts by examining behaviour such as how frequently people tweet about accounts that do not follow them or whether they have confirmed their email address.
Tweets from such “suspicious accounts” will appear lower in certain areas of the service such as in replies and in search results. While talking about the latest change, Dorsey said, “We want to take the burden of the work of the people receiving the abuse or the harassment. Past efforts to fight abuse “felt like Whac-A-Mole”, he added.
However, the CEO clarified that behavioural patterns are not only the sole factor being considered for limiting tweet visibility. The company has conducted a new test post its maiden approach that has resulted in a 4% decrease in abuse reports originating from search results and an 8% decrease in abuse reports from the conversations that take place as replies to tweets.
Lately, Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter have been facing too much pressure to rework on their safety controls and comabat bullies many of whom target women and minorities in particular. Hence, Reducing abuse would help boost Twitter’s business which today has a whopping 336 million monthly active users worldwide.