Twitter Sets New Goals to Combat Trolls

It’s been a good week for tech sites looking to prevent harassment. Earlier this week, Reddit banned revenge porn. Essentially, what that means is that it’s now prohibited to upload a naked or otherwise compromising photo to the site without the subject’s consent. That obviously won’t stop all instances of abuse and revenge porn, but it’s certainly a step in the right direction. But it wasn’t just Reddit that took such steps–Twitter also has announced its plan to combat abuse on the site.

Twitter has long been plagued by “trolls.” For the uninitiated to the Twittersphere, we’re not talking about the kind of trolls that live in dungeons or under bridges. A Twitter troll is someone who constantly and incessantly posts inflammatory or abusive posts with the intent to rile or incite a reaction. It’s usually, though not always a form of internet harassment.

Twitter has consistently been the home to many trolls–and the recent #GamerGate discussion brought many out to play. #GamerGate is a virulent movement that attacks women, particularly a few vocal feminist critics of the misogyny inherent in the gaming industry and certain games. The #GamerGate trolls have consistently and repetitively attacked women, tweeting horrible threats of abuse, rape, and murder. The women attacked by #GamerGate aren’t alone–many people, men and women alike, have reported being harassed.

Twitter wants to help put a stop to that, and the company has realized that it’s done a pretty bad job of combating abuse in the past. CEO Dick Costolo wrote in a memo:

I’m frankly ashamed of how poorly we’ve dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It’s absurd. There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.

It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

He also wrote:

So now we’re going to fix it, and I’m going to take full responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this have the resources they need to address the issue, that there are clear lines of responsibility and accountability, and that we don’t equivocate in our decisions and choices.

It’s in light of these revelations that Twitter is introducing more tools to combat these trolls. For example, it’s started tracking the phone numbers of those who are reported as abusers. How will this help combat harassment? Well, often when users are banned, they are able to easily make new accounts by creating new email addresses. It’s much harder to obtain a new phone number than a new email address. In addition, Twitter is streamlining its process for reporting harm. The company also announced some other “enforcement actions” that will be rolled out in the weeks to come.

The fact that Twitter is trying to take more actions to combat abuse is a good thing, especially in light of the news from Reddit also coming in this week. That being said, it’s not going to solve all problems. Twitter has promised to be more vigilant–let’s hope it actually owns up to the promise.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.