Spam, inbox stuffing and abuse are just some of the things social media experts are used to when it comes to Twitter management. But that doesn’t mean we’re not tired of it. There are only so many infected links you can deal with before it gets completely annoying. A new blog post published Monday, entitled “We Hear You” from Twitter’s Senior Director of Trust & Safety, Del Harvey, indicates that Twitter is acting fast to block abuse.
Harvey confessed that,”We are not blind to the reality that there will always be people using Twitter in ways that are abusive and may harm others.” This statement comes on the heels of a popular Change.org campaign to have a “Report Abuse” button added to Tweets. “While manually reviewing every Tweet is not possible due to Twitter’s global reach and level of activity,” wrote Harvey, “we use both automated and manual systems to evaluate reports of users potentially violating our Twitter rules.”
The changes in reporting abuse actually went into effect 3 weeks ago and include the ability to file reports regarding an individual Tweet on its iPhone app as well as Twitter’s mobile site. Twitter plans to roll out desktop and Android versions of the feature in the coming months.
Twitter abuse is an especially hot-button issue in the UK right now. The Change,org campaign was launched after activist Caroline Cirado-Perez started a petition to keep women (other than the Queen) on banknotes. Cirado-Perez’s Twitter feed was reportedly flooded with rape and death threats. In the U.S., Twitter abuse hasn’t made headlines, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t a huge problem. On these shores, abuse usually takes the form of hacked Twitter accounts, spamming and fake follower schemes. But any violation of Twitter’s rules is juts that: a violation. So we’re glad the little bird is doing something about it.
Readers, what do you think: Are these report abuse upgrades enough? Sound off in the comments section.
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