Twitter CEO Dick Costolo openly admitted the site has a problem with trolls and they would make the site a safer place in the future. Trolling, cyber-bullying, and threats are a widespread problem on the internet that no one site has managed to quell or even manage. Twitter however has caught a lot of attention for not protecting users from trolls who make threats over the social network.
Now the company is making changes to its terms in-order to prevent trolls from harassing and threatening users on the site. Twitter’s terms of service used to say that the company would take action against users who made “direct, specific threats of violence against others.” The new terms give leeway to Twitter who believe users are making “threats of violence against others or violence against others,” even if the threats aren’t specific or direct.
If the terms are violated the company will freeze the account for a short period. If the account continues to violate the terms the amount of time the account is frozen will extend until its ultimately removed from the site. While the company wants users to not see threats or experience bullying, its making sure it can protect users if it does happen. They are building tools to stop threats and bullying from ever being seen, but they aren’t finished yet or don’t work 100% yet.
Twitter is increasingly becoming a place for news, political announcements, and a corner stone of our media hungry world. It’s welcome to remove a few bad Apples to make the site a better and safer place. Tell us in the comments below what you think about the small but important change in the social networks terms.