Twitter Wants to Find the Trolls Before You Do

Twitter has another round of updates intended to gainsay abuse on the platform.

Twitter is working to identify accounts engaging in abusive behavior, even if the account hasn't however been flagged, Twitter VP of Technology Ed Ho wrote in a blog mail. If an account is repeatedly tweeting at not-followers without solicitation, for case, Twitter may make it and then that merely the tweeter's followers can see their tweets for a certain amount of time.

The rule volition apply to accounts engaging in "patterns of abusive behavior," Ho wrote. "Our platform supports the liberty to share any viewpoint, merely if an account continues to repeatedly violate the Twitter Rules, we volition consider taking further action," he added.

The idea is to punish only abusive accounts only because the tools are new, Twitter might accidentally take action confronting a benign user. "Nosotros will sometimes brand mistakes, just know that nosotros are actively working to ameliorate and iterate on them everyday," Ho wrote.

Twitter is also introducing new filtering options to give users more control over the notifications they see. You tin now mute notifications from people you don't follow, and so-called "egg" accounts without a profile photograph, too equally users with unverified electronic mail addresses and telephone numbers. To do that, click on the gear icon in the upper-left corner of the Twitter app, click through to Avant-garde filters, and select the norifications you want to mute.

"Many people requested more filter options for their notifications, and nosotros're excited to bring these to anybody on Twitter," Ho wrote.

Y'all can likewise at present mute tweets with certain words, phrases, or entire conversations from appearing in your timeline, and decide how long that content is silenced: a solar day, week, calendar month, or indefinitely. This new tool comes later on Twitter in November started letting people mute this content from their notifications.

Finally, when you lot written report corruption on the platform, Twitter volition follow up to allow you know it received the report, along with any activity it'southward taking. This will be visible in your notifications tab.

About Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo

Angela Moscaritolo is PCMag's expert on fitness and smart home products. Teaching yoga for nearly x years has helped her in evaluating a range of connected health products including fitness trackers, eye rate monitors, rowers, smart scales, stationary bikes, strength training machines, treadmills, and more. Angela also tests smart home devices from her ranch in Florida, including air purifiers, kitchen appliances, and robot vacuums, but to name a few.