Bad News for Trolls: Twitter Streamlines Blocking, Reporting Functions

It just became slightly more difficult to be a troll on the internet: Twitter announced improvements to its blocking and reporting features, in hopes of making the social media platform a bit easier to police. (If your reaction to this is “WHAT ABOUT THE FIRST AMENDMENT???1?!?1?” proceed directly to the comments section.)

“These enhancements similarly improve the reporting process for those who observe abuse but aren’t receiving it directly,” Twitter said in a statement Tuesday. “And to enable faster response times, we’ve made the first of several behind-the-scenes improvements to the tools and processes that help us review reported Tweets and accounts.”

Twitter has been heavily scrutinized for slow and inadequate responses to online harassment, especially harassment toward women; it recently partnered with Women, Action, and the Media (WAM) to improve its protocols.

Below is a video that shows the steps for reporting harassment on a mobile device:

Starting today we're rolling out an improved way to flag abusive Tweets. See how it works. https://t.co/Yf6cStz0z1

— Twitter Support (@Support) December 2, 2014

Don’t worry, trolls’ll still find a way.

[Image via screengrab]

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>> Follow Evan McMurry (@evanmcmurry) on Twitter

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