Twitter has announced three new changes to its service designed to make it a safe place for its users.
The first of these changes is aimed at stopping the creation of new abusive accounts. According to the release on Twitter’s blog, they are taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended to stop them from creating new accounts. The second change relates to improving Twitter’s search functionality so that it removes Tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and tweets from blocked/muted accounts from search results. The final change involves Twitter identifying and collapsing potentially abusive and low-quality replies so that the most relevant conversations are brought forward.
No official timeframe is given as to when these safety changes will be rolling out, though the release states that Twitter intends to implement them “[i]n the days and weeks ahead.” Twitter adamantly states that they “stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic” and that these measures are being put in place to ensure that abuse and harassment does not stifle and silence those voices.