Twitter to be more Pro-Active about Cyberbullying

Via Digital Spy

Twitter_bird_logo_2012.svgTwitter announced today three important changes in their fight against cyberbullying:

"Today, we’re announcing three changes: stopping the creation of new abusive accounts, bringing forward safer search results, and collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets.

Stopping the creation of new abusive accounts:
We’re taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts. This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.

Introducing safer search results:
We’re also working on ‘safe search’ which removes Tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and Tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer. Learn more in our help center.

Collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets:
Our team has also been working on identifying and collapsing potentially abusive and low-quality replies so the most relevant conversations are brought forward. These Tweet replies will still be accessible to those who seek them out. You can expect to see this change rolling out in the coming weeks." (Twitter blog)

This comes after changes made in November where they expanded the "mute" option into notifications, gave people easier ways to report abuse and "retrained all of our support teams on our policies, including special sessions on cultural and historical contextualization of hateful conduct, and implemented an ongoing refresher program." (Twitter blog) Last week they also allowed people to report tweets that mention you by name even though the tweeter has block you.

It will be interesting to see if these design hacks help to keep the trolls at bay. I hope so.