It’s unfortunate some individuals have adopted the habit of using social media to harass and pass on hate speech. It’s quite common for high profile individuals such as politicians, artists and top bloggers who try to get back at their rivals by tweeting abusive content. This in turn sparks new hate propaganda. Twitter however seems to be something about this and had added a new “block page” to make it easier for users to see members they’ve banished from their list of followers. Back-end improvements to Twitter’s systems are designed to improve response times.
The way the system handles blocked accounts is changing, too. When an account is blocked, its owner no longer will be able to see the profile page of the person who blocked them. Previously, blocked account holders could see profile pages and even tweet on them, although the tweets were filtered out of the profile page feeds.
When the new system is fully implemented — it is being rolled out selectively over time — tagging an account or tweet as “abusive” will lead you down a menu tree where you’ll identify who is being abused — you or someone else — and what kind of abuse you’re reporting: disrespectful or offensive comments, harassment, or a threat of violence or physical harm.
“In our continuing effort to make your Twitter experience safer, we’re enhancing our in-product harassment reporting and making improvements to ‘block’ [followers],” said Shreyas Doshi, Twitter’s director of product management.
The new changes make it easier to report account impersonation, harassment of others on the service, and threats of harm to oneself or others, he explained.
In addition to making the reporting process more mobile-friendly, the changes allow subscribers to report abuse of others on the service and simplify flagging tweets and accounts for review.