Twitter launched a new Safety Center page in its efforts to minimize the abusive behavior on the site. This latest section offers tips on how to deal with online abuse, trolls, stalkers and other forms of online harassment.
Twitter working to make platform better
A few months back, former Twitter CEO Dick Costolo acknowledged the concerns in an internal mail, saying, “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years.” Costolo also promised to make more efforts to improve.
To execute the promise, Twitter revealed the Safety Center page this Monday, describing it as a tool for “building a safer Twitter.” The page help users by offering tools that allow them to control what others can view about them, and also report if there are any violations of Twitter’s rules. As an example, users can report a specific tweet or profile regarding spam, abuse and other kinds of violations. The micro-blogging firm has also committed to adding more information in many languages in the Safety Center.
What new does the Safety Center offer?
Twitter was having difficulty in dealing effectively with trolls and abusive users. Similar to other social networks, the micro-blogging firm also needed to protect free speech along with assuring users’ safety and security. There are many examples of a user getting an abusive message or a death threat on Twitter. This resulted in a loss of users for the company.
To tackle the problem, the micro-blogging firm released many new features this year. Along with the new features, the company publicized in April that abusive accounts will be suspended and the offensive tweets will be deleted.
With the Safety Center listing all the tools to report abuse, Twitter aims to significantly improve how it handles abuse, spam and other violations. The page also contains a separate section that highlights Twitter’s plan of action to handle user’s reports of abuse and the abusers themselves. The page also offers dedicated sections for teenagers, families and educators, serving as a one-stop shop for learning how to effectively handle abuse and other violations on the platform.
Twitter definitely faces a big challenge with a customer base of about 302 million monthly active members and 500 million tweets sent per day. That said, the company is certainly working hard to find solutions to this issue.
