It really tells you something when the CEO of any company tells you that when it comes to trolls and abuse, the pretty much suck. That’s what Dick Costolo, the CEO of Twitter said when an internal email was leaked. After the email leak happened, the actions to correct the situation have been swift. The VP of User Services, Tina Bhatnagar, said that the team is releasing new reporting options, which has been tripled in size of the last six months.
The idea behind the report is to halt “doxing”, which is the practice of broadcasting personal information on the web. The report allows users for users to report on “content issues including impersonaltion, self-harm and the sharing of private and confidential information” against malicious users. There is confirmation that was received by Ars Technica saying that users that are warned or temporarily banned might be instructed to provide their email address or phone number if they want to gain access to the service again.
“These new actions will not be visible to the vast majority of rule-abiding Twitter users – but they give us new options for acting against the accounts that don’t follow the rules and serve to discourage behavior that goes against our policies.”
-Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter VP, User Services
Because the abuse team has increased in size, they can now handle five times the user reports as before, due to the extra staffing, processes and tools. Because of these cahnges, Twitter should be provided with a safer place to use and may allow the company to correct some of their declining Monthly Active User issues.
For more information see the official release and Ars Technica.