How Twitter plans to fight cyber bullying, harassment

Twitter will soon have in place, a new update to curb harassment, bullying and improve abuse reporting.

The social network platform will make it possible for users to “mute” abuse.

A “mute” function will enable people block accounts they don’t want to see tweets from as well as keywords, phrases and conversations they don’t want to get notifications about.

Users who decide to mute things won’t see them.

A statement released by Twitter said: “The amount of abuse, bullying, and harassment we’ve seen across the Internet has risen sharply over the past few years.

“These behaviors inhibit people from participating on Twitter, or anywhere. Abusive conduct removes the chance to see and share all perspectives around an issue, which we believe is critical to moving us all forward.

“In the worst cases, this type of conduct threatens human dignity, which we should all stand together to protect.”

“This is another step on a path towards trying to address abuse and do it in a way that is as rapid and as effective as possible,” said Del Harvey, Twitter’s vice president of trust and safety.

“We don’t expect these announcements to suddenly remove abusive conduct from Twitter. No single action by us would do that. Instead, we commit to rapidly improving Twitter based on everything we observe and learn.”