Twitter and Facebook are the two most popular social networking sites in the world. People use both platforms to express their views on various issues ranging from social, political, religious, economical and so on. These discussions on social media sometimes take a serious turn, and it becomes important to make a clear distinction between what accounts for abuse and what is tolerable under free speech.
Twitter increases team size
On Thursday, Twitter reasserted its commitment for tackling the problem of abuse on its platform, assuring users it will take strict action against any postings it finds to be mean, hateful or abusive. The micro-blogging site is overhauling its safety measures to take consideration abusive and hateful content, and enforcement of the new policy involves developing a dedicated team to deal with it, Vijaya Gadde said in a column published by The Washington Post.
“We need to do a better job combating abuse without chilling or silencing speech,” Gadde said.
The executive informed readers that the company has nearly tripled the size of the team entrusted with the responsibility of protecting users. Now, with the increase in the team size, issues or complaints are addressed at a speed that is five times faster than before, said Gadde.
Committed to addressing the issue
Twitter is also planning to come down hard on anonymously created accounts. Several Twitter accounts are created anonymously for targeting innocent people, and the micro-blogging site is making all efforts to identify and deactivate such accounts to prevent their misuse. Also the changes include widening the definition of banned “abuse,” which now includes threats of violence.
“We are changing our approach to this problem, in some ways that won’t be readily apparent and in others that will be,” Gadde said.
In recent times, Twitter has taken serious measures for ensuring safe and sound use of its platform. A recent example of Twitter fighting abuse came last month when the company modified its rules to ban “revenge porn.”
Apart from Twitter, Facebook is also working to ensure the well-being of its users on the platform and updated its “community standards” guidelines last month to give users more clarity on posts concerning nudity, violence, hate speech and other contentious topics.
