Twitter battles abusive content with #StopHarrassment

Keeping in mind everything that has been happening on Twitter lately, the site has updated their rules that said they will not tolerate abusive behaviour on their platform or remarks against gays and transsexuals.

Working on their hate speech, Twitter has updated its rules to undertake a ban on homophobia and other fanaticism on the microblogging site. According to No Homophobes.com, the word ‘faggot’ has been tweeted over 34M times since July 2012 on the platform.

Still waiting on @twitter to admit the slur #faggot violates its #abuse policy. Anytime now @jack or @jmsSanFran. #LGBT #twitterloveshate

— Ryan Kendall (@rmk2145) January 3, 2016

Twitter rules now ban ‘hateful conduct’ which is defined as; “You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.”

In a simpler language, Twitter is actually trying to limit the offensive behaviour of some of their users by enabling new tools that will report, block and mute accounts if they seem to be involved in abuses and hateful content.

Megan Christina, Twitter’s director of Trust and Safety says, The updated language emphasizes that Twitter will not tolerate behavior intended to harass, intimidate, or use fear to silence another user’s voice, as always, we embrace and encourage diverse opinions and beliefs –but we will continue to take action on accounts that cross the line into abuse”

Users that fail in behaving on social media will face either temporary or permanent suspension of their account. The microblogging site has added more options similar to the quality filter that was added in March last year, to remove threatening tweets from a verified user.

With growing social media users, Twitter's policy towards keeping their platform sanitized will help them in the long run, however, it should be enforced at the earliest to bring about significant change. Hopefully, Twitter made the right move to handle online bullying.