Twitter’s improvements to abuse reporting

Now that more than a quarter of US teens use Twitter, according to the Pew Internet Project, parents might want to know that Twitter has upgraded its abuse-reporting process. Apparently in response to a series of serious threats in Twitter aimed at women journalists in the UK, Twitter is “cracking down” on abusive behavior, USATODAY reports, with specific categories for reporting, including harassment. And before that, Twitter started making it easier to report violations of its rules, adding the option to report specific tweets, Mashable.com reports – though so far only on iPhones and mobile.twitter.com in smartphone browsers. Mashable adds that Twitter’s hiring more staff to help handle abuse reports. The service’s head of trust and safety, Del Harvey, wrote in its UK blog that Twitter users worldwide send more than 400 million Tweets a day via the site and various apps. “While manually reviewing every Tweet is not possible” because of that volume, she wrote, “we use both automated and manual systems to evaluate reports of users potentially violating our Twitter Rules. These rules explicitly bar direct, specific threats of violence against others and use of our service for unlawful purposes.” [Disclosure: Twitter is a supporter of ConnectSafely.org, where I serve as co-director.]

Related links

  • Here‘s how to report tweets, and here are instructions for reporting in general.
  • Twitter’s Safety Tips for Teens and Parents
  • My ConnectSafely co-director Larry Magid’s coverage at Forbes.com
  • A (digital) return to village life,” which I wrote in 2008 about a long, thoughtful piece about Twitter in the New York Times Magazine and about Twitter was making university classes more village-like
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