Twitter updates rules to fight online abuse and harm

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Social media site Twitter is planning to update its rules, to enforce stricter policies and curb the posting of hate speech and abuse, and to push itself to respond to reports faster.

In a series of tweets by its CEO Jack Dorsey, he acknowledged that the site’s problems such as the prevalence of nudity, hate speech and abuse by some users. He then promised that this year, the site will enforce a “more aggressive stance” on its policies.

In the next few weeks, Dorsey stated that tweets involving non-consensual nudity, hate symbols and unwanted sexual advances will be brought to action in a swift pace.

2/ We prioritized this in 2016. We updated our policies and increased the size of our teams. It wasn’t enough.

— jack (@jack) October 14, 2017

4/ Today we saw voices silencing themselves and voices speaking out because we’re *still* not doing enough.

— jack (@jack) October 14, 2017

6/ We decided to take a more aggressive stance in our rules and how we enforce them.

— jack (@jack) October 14, 2017

8/ These changes will start rolling out in the next few weeks. More to share next week.

— jack (@jack) October 14, 2017

But according to a report by Wired, this “aggressive stance” Dorsey mentioned would mean a permanent shut down of an account, once identified that it committed such actions on Twitter.

Twitter will also expand its meaning of the term non-consensual nudity as “upskirt imagery, creepy content, and hidden camera content.” Unwanted sexual advances will be put into brutal action if someone being harassed will report to them, without using the options block or mute.

With recent reports of hate crimes, Twitter will also take action about the use of hate symbols, which are considered sensitive media. Twitter officials are still in talks about how violent groups, along with tweets that glorify various forms of violence (threats, physical and mental harm, or even death) will be sanctioned. Katrina Hallare/JB

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