Twitter today pledged to catch abusive content before it reaches your feed.
Twitter will identify and collapse "potentially abusive and low-quality replies" so you don't see them as you scroll, Twitter's Vice President of Engineering, Ed Ho, said in a Tuesday blog post.
If you're a glutton for punishment, these replies will still be available "to those who seek them out," according to Ho, who said the change will roll out "in the coming weeks."
Twitter is also scrubbing tweets that "contain potentially sensitive content" from search results. You'll still be able to find this content, but "it won't clutter search results any longer."
The move builds on updates Twitter rolled out in November, which allowed users to mute notifications. In August, it also rolled out a "quality filter" option that prevents you from seeing "lower-quality content, like duplicate Tweets or content that appears to be automated" in your notifications and other parts of Twitter. And last week, it introduced an improvement to reporting abusive tweets:
Meanwhile, the company is taking steps to identify and stop past abusers from creating new accounts. This way, people who have been permanently suspended from Twitter will have a harder time striking again. "This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others," Ho wrote.
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More changes are on the way, Ho said. "In the days and weeks ahead, we will continue to roll out product changes – some changes will be visible and some less so – and will update you on progress every step of the way," he wrote. "With every change, we'll learn, iterate, and continue to move at this speed until we've made a significant impact that people can feel."
But while Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey says stopping abuse and harassment on the platform is his company's "top priority," it remains a big issue. Disney, for example, reportedly decided against an acquisition "partly out of concern that bullying and other uncivil forms of communication...might soil the company's wholesome family image," Bloomberg reported in October.