Twitter UK says it is trying to make reporting abuse on the site easier

Twitter has come out and acknowledged the reality of abusive tweets in the aftermath of feminist campaigner Caroline Criado-Perez receiving violent threats on the micro-blogging platform. The company has said that it is looking for ways to tackle the troll problem in a better and more effective fashion. In a blog post titled “We hear you.” Twitter’s Senior Director of Trust and Safety of the UK arm, Del Harvey wrote that majority of the 400 million tweets sent daily are positive but there will always be people who use Twitter in a way that is abusive and harmful for others.

Twitter is listening

“While manually reviewing every Tweet is not possible due to Twitter’s global reach and level of activity, we use both automated and manual systems to evaluate reports of users potentially violating our Twitter Rules,” wrote Harvey. “These rules explicitly bar direct, specific threats of violence against others and use of our service for unlawful purposes, for which users may be suspended when reported.”

As of now the iPhone app and mobile version of Twitter allows users to report abuse from an individual tweet. Harvey wrote that the social networking service is working on getting this feature to Android and desktop versions of Twitter as well. She also assured Twitter users that the service was constantly trying to find ways and means to improve Twitter by talking to its users, advocacy groups and government officials.

Although Twitter has not officially acknowledged the Criado-Perez issue, it is evident that the service has had to come out to assure users that it is making efforts to curb violent trolling on Twitter. As we had reported earlier, Criado-Perez, a feminist campaigner, led a successful movement last week to make Jane Austen, famed author of Pride and Prejudice, the face of the £10 note in the UK. Austen’s face will be replacing Charles Darwin in 2017.

Following the Bank of England’s official declaration, Criado-Perez began receiving abusive tweets that threatened her with rape and murder on the social networking website. Her supporters were outraged by the lack of options by Twitter to report abuse and started a petition to urge Twitter to make reporting violent behaviour easier.