Twitter expanding efforts to protect users from abuse, harassment

Twitter said yesterday that it was expanding efforts to protect its users from abuse and harassment, the latest milestone in a broader corporate campaign to crack down on online hate.

The social media giant said it had started identifying people who had been banned for abusive behavior and it would stop them from creating new accounts. According to the company, its changes, which also included a new "safe search" feature, would be implemented over the coming weeks.

The micro-blogging network in July banned conservative Milo Yiannopoulos, an editor of the right-wing news site Breitbart News, for "participating in or inciting targeted abuse of individuals."

Twitter also went on to suspend the accounts of other prominent figureheads of the "alt-right" fringe movement, which mixed elements of racism, white nationalism, xenophobia and anti-feminism.

Twitter had been slammed for not addressing hate and abuse on the site since its founding a decade ago. Even as it sought to balance its reputation as a free speech haven, the site had to boost efforts to protect users.

A number of internet companies have taken steps recently to curb abusive behaviour and ban users who violated rules against promoting hate.

In a recent blog post, vice-president of engineering, Ed Ho said that the company would investigate to crack down on abusive tweets and suspended Twitter accounts.

He announced Tuesday that the creation of new abusive accounts would be stopped.

 ''We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic. That's put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices. We won't tolerate it and we're launching new efforts to stop it,'' Ho added.

The company is also planning to omit tweets or replies that contained potentially sensitive content and the posts from a blocked or muted account; from the search results.