Trolls whipped, really?

Twitter>> Abusive Talk • UK

 
Published: Saturday 31 August 2013

“We want people to feel safe on Twitter,” Tony Wang, the company’s general manager for the UK, wrote in a blog post as he updated rules to control abusive posts on the microblogging site on July 29. The move follows a barrage of nasty, harassing, and threatening messages directed at high-profile women Twitter users in the UK. Wang also announced the development of an “in-Tweet report button”. This feature would allow users to circumvent the help centre and file a report directly from a tweet.

“The process is lengthy, complicated and impossible to use if you’re under sustained attack like I have been,” Caroline Criado-Perez, a feminist campaigner who received rape threats on Twitter, told The Guardian. “Right now, all the emphasis is on the victim, often under intense pressure, to report rather than for Twitter to track down the perpetrator and stop them,” says Criado-Perez. Twitter needs to overhaul its system for handling abuse, she says.

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