Twitter Shares How The Platform is Tackling Abuse

October 20, 2017

Twitter is introducing new rules in the next three months that will crack down on sexual harassment, non-consensual nudity and hateful imagery posted on the platform.

The information sharing platform released a calendar of its plan to toughen rules, detailing upcoming changes that’ll take effect as early as next week. The move to make their plans public is one way Twitter is aiming to be more transparent.

“Far too often in the past we’ve said we’d do better and promised transparency but have fallen short in our efforts. Starting today, you can expect regular, real-time updates about our progress,” said Twitter in a blog post.

The first rule change concerns accounts sharing non-consensual nudity, stating Twitter is expanding their definition to “err on the side of protecting victims” to include images like up-skirt photos and those taken on hidden webcams. They say the original poster of the image will be immediately and permanently suspended.

On November 3, Twitter is rolling out a host of new rules related to violent groups, hateful imagery and hate symbols. Accounts that promote violence and use hateful content in an avatar or profile headers won’t be permitted. A few weeks later, rules will be further updated to include hateful display names.

Twitter is also addressing unwanted sexual advances by expanded enforcement of non-consensual interactions on the platform.

The CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey teased the new rules last week in a series of tweets and updated that thread with the calendar yesterday.

“This makes us feel uncomfortable because it’s a work in progress and rough, but it’s the right thing to do,” wrote Dorsey. “We believe showing our thinking and work in real-time will help build trust.”

The new anti-abuse measures follow a batch of updates announced in March of this year when Twitter revealed they had developed a new algorithm to flag and take down abusive accounts. However, harnessing AI hasn’t yet put an end to Twitter trolls and tweet-spewing anonymous eggs accounts.