Twitter updates rules to clarify on abusive behavior and hateful conduct

Twitter believes that protection from abuse and harassment is a vital part of empowering people to freely express themselves on their platform.

Today, as part of Twitter continued efforts to combat abuse, they are updating their Twitter Rules to clarify what we consider to be abusive behaviour and hateful conduct. The updated language emphasizes that Twitter will not tolerate behaviour intended to harass, threaten, or use fear to silence another user’s voice. As always, twitter embraces and encourages various opinions and beliefs but they will also continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse.

“Over the past year, we’ve taken several steps to fight abuse in order to protect freedom of expression: We’ve empowered users with tools for blocking, muting, and reporting abusive behaviour, and evolved our policy to capture more types of abusive behaviour”, Twitter said in a statement on their official blog.

They have also increased in their investments in policy enforcement so as they can handle more reports with greater efficiency, and bolstered educational resources through a new Twitter Safety Centre.[related-posts]

One of the areas Twitter has found to be more effective in this multi-layered strategy of fighting abuse is creating mandatory actions for suspected abusive behaviours, such as email and phone verification, and user deletion of Tweets for violations. These measures curb abusive behaviour by helping the community understand what is acceptable on the Twitter platform.

In conclusion, Twitter said, “Keeping users safe requires a comprehensive and balanced approach where everyone plays a role. We will continue to build on these initiatives to empower our users and ensure that Twitter remains a platform for people to express themselves.”