Twitter gets tougher on trolls with new anti-harassment features

Twitter has been front and center lately in the war against online harassment, and today the company revealed some new features that are designed to make using the social network easier for its members. The biggest new feature will allow users to mute items in notifications.

In a blog post, Twitter says that users will be able to mute any words, phrases, and even conversations from their notifications, in case they don’t want to get any alerts about them. Previously, users were only able to mute individual accounts. This feature, which will also include support for muting hashtags and emoji, will be rolled out over the next few days. It stated:

This is a feature we’ve heard many of you ask for, and we’re going to keep listening to make it better and more comprehensive over time.

This will certainly offer its users a more direct way to report any hateful or harassing speech they encounter. Finally, the company says it has retained its support teams on its policies and will offer them an ongoing refresher program on its anti-harassment efforts.

While Twitter admits these new efforts won’t wipe out hate speech or harassing users on their service for good, it does say it is committed to improving itself as it learns more about these kinds of situations. Do you think these changes and additions will make Twitter a safer place to express yourself?