Twitter – An Update on Safety » 

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I joined Twitter in April of 2008. Back then it was a place to literally tell the world what you were up to at that specific moment in time. It’s kind of funny to look back at my old tweets and see the difference in the social network from then to today.

My first tweet is actually pretty embarrassing, but here it is anyway.

Over time Twitter has become a place to share news opinions & media in real-time, as well as share your daily musings. I remember distinctly one of the first pictures of Flight 1549 – the US Airways Flight that landed in the Hudson River – was someone on a NY Waterway Boat tweeting a picture of the plane as their boat was sent to rescue passengers.

The recent United States Presidential Election has brought to Twitter more arguments and harassment than ever before. There are countless Twitter Eggs that you’ll come across in the replies of politicians and news organizations. Due to this, Twitter seems to have made a commitment in 2017 to create a safer environment for all users on its platform.

Today, Twitter has introduced three changes to make the platform a safer place for daily use & engagement –

Stopping the creation of new abusive accounts:
We’re taking steps to identify people who have been permanently suspended and stop them from creating new accounts. This focuses more effectively on some of the most prevalent and damaging forms of behavior, particularly accounts that are created only to abuse and harass others.

Introducing safer search results
We’re also working on ‘safe search’ which removes Tweets that contain potentially sensitive content and Tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. While this type of content will be discoverable if you want to find it, it won’t clutter search results any longer. Learn more in our help center.

Collapsing potentially abusive or low-quality Tweets:
Our team has also been working on identifying and collapsing potentially abusive and low-quality replies so the most relevant conversations are brought forward. These Tweet replies will still be accessible to those who seek them out. You can expect to see this change rolling out in the coming weeks.

These changes are a welcome addition to the platform and I hope to see Twitter do more to address issues of harassment and abuse on their social network. 2017 seems to be the year of change and improvement for Twitter and so far I give them two thumbs up.

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