Twitter has changed its policy and is updating the way Twitter works in a major shift that would allow the company to both block online trolls or limit their audience.
The first major change is to Twitter's violent threats policy which has changed from “direct, specific threats of violence against others” to now including, “threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others.”
In a candid blog post Twitter's Director of Product Management Shreyas Doshi called the previous policy 'unduly narrow and limited'.
"The updated language better describes the range of prohibited content and our intention to act when users step over the line into abuse."
In addition to the policy update Twitter has now given the support team the ability to block people out of their accounts for an unspecified amount of time.
READ MORE:
On top of that, a user would then have to follow a number of other steps before being allowed back online. This would include connecting your account to a verified phone number and then finally they would be asked to personally delete the abusive tweets.
"This option gives us leverage in a variety of contexts, particularly where multiple users begin harassing a particular person or group of people." writes Doshi.
Finally, Twitter is actually testing an algorithm which will detect abusive tweets and then limit their audience, including those targeted. While the tweet can still be searched, it'll simply have reduced visibility among contextual users, the idea being that it would dampen any efforts by a group to harass an individual.
These are just the latest in a series of steps being taken by the company to try and tackle the problem of online abuse that seems prevalent on Twitter.
Twitter recently announced it was testing a new 'quality filter' feature for verified users on iPhone. If turned on it would filter out abusive mentions and tweets that included the person's Twitter handle.
It is hoped that if successful, the company can roll it out among normal users both on iPhone and Android.