Twitter adds function to report multiple abusive tweets at same time

Update aims to speed up reporting process for those suffering from online abuse and will be rolled out to users in coming weeks

 

 

Twitter’s former CEO Dick Costolo made preventing abuse one of the company’s top priorities. Photograph: Francois G Durand/Getty Images

Samuel Gibbs 

 

Twitter has improved its anti-harassment tools, adding the ability to report multiple abusive tweets at the same time. Previously, users had to manually report each abusive tweet individually, filling out the required report repeatedly. This was time-consuming and frustrating for users subjected to online harassment who faced being bombarded by hundreds of tweets at a time.

Hao Tang, one of Twitter’s safety engineers, said: “We want everyone on Twitter to feel safe expressing themselves. Behaviour that crosses the line into abuse is against our rules and we want it to be easy for you to report it to us.”

Twitter has been attempting to help prevent abuse of its users since its former chief executive Dick Costolo made it one of the company’s top priorities. But the company has been criticised for not going far enough to weed out abusive users and protect those subjected to often extensive campaigns of harassment.

Tang said: “This update makes it easier for you to provide us with more information about the extent of abuse and reduces the time it takes to do so. That added context often helps us investigate issues and get them resolved faster.”

The update will be rolling out to users across Twitter.com and users of its iOS and Android apps in the coming weeks.

It follows the introduction of muting, blocking and reporting tools and recently the addition of a “quality filter”, which is designed to automatically screen out abusive language from a user’s notifications.