Microblogging site Twitter has recently announced it will use algorithms to go after abusive Twitter accounts as a spate of cases regarding abuse of Twitter freedoms have been reported by its users. Hopefully, the use of algorithms will slow down rising incidents of "abusive content" attacks on users.
Ed Ho, Twitter vice president of engineering, was quoted by The Drum to have assured Twitter users that the social media site is imposing more safety measures to identify perpetrators of abusive content, as well as limiting the perpetrator's account functionality for a certain period of time. This may include allowing only the abuser's followers to view their tweets.
Ho explained that Twitter will impose sanctions when the algorithms have positively identified that the Twitter user has actually abused their rights to use Twitter. This includes tweeting at someone who has not solicited a response from that person, or is definitely a non-follower, or have violated Twitter's rules of conduct.
On the other hand, Amy Vernon, a Board of Director member of the non-profit group CiviliNation which advocates good conduct online, said Twitter's initiative to implement safer measures online is a good move but wished the social media site had implemented such tools a long time, reported North Jersey. Vernon, however, believes that there should still be a "human element" to filtering out if a tweet is really part of an abusive content.
Other filtering options incorporated include allowing the Twitter user to see which kind of accounts they will view on their feed, e.g. accounts without a photo or those with unverified emails and phone numbers will be barred. A mute option is also being considered, meaning a user can stop seeing a user's tweets in his feed without blocking or unfriending him/her for a certain period of time.
Some Twitter users already said the changes were felt already last week but couldn't figure out why there were "timeouts" in their account, reported The Stuff. These timeouts included the use of profanity against other users.
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