Twitter Announces New Blocking and Filtering Features (wired.co.uk)

Twitter just began rolling out "new ways to control your experience," promising the two new features "will give you more control over what you see and who you interact with on Twitter." An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes a report from Wired UK: First up, notification settings will allow those using Twitter on the web or on desktop to limit the notifications they receive for @ mentions, RTs, and other interactions to just be from people they follow. The feature can be turned on through the notifications tab. Twitter is also expanding its quality filter -- also accessible through notifications. "When turned on, the filter can improve the quality of Tweets you see by using a variety of signals, such as account origin and behavior," the company's product manager Emil Leong said in a blog post.

In December 2015, the company changed its rules to explicitly ban "hateful conduct" for the first time, while back in February last year, Twitter's then-CEO Dick Costolo admitted the network needed to improve how it handled trolls and abuse. In a leaked memo he said: "I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing."
Meanwhile, the Twitter account of Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales was hacked on Saturday.

Comments

Going to be interesting

[Crashmarik]

Seeing as they are shifting from a decentralized communication/discussion system to centralized advertising/propaganda delivery system, you have to wonder will the rubes using it keep using it ? Or even notice.

Great, so when will they ban the SJWs?

[Shadow of Eternity]

Nyberg is not only a vicious troll but also a self-admitted child predator who's openly been given pictures of people's children for sexual gratification, and Quinn along with most of the others spend their entire time on twitter spewing racist and sexist hate at people inbetween rounds of doxings.

Or is this actually about policing opinions and politics and not trolling and hate speech.

Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs?

[Shadow of Eternity]

Ami we've been through this. I and others have repeatedly given you documentation of everything from her doxing and worse of "rival" feminists The Fine Young Capitalists as well as her involvement in attempting to swap Mike Cernovich, and then there's the matter of public record now of her toxic use of the legal system to continue her long history of domestic abuse against her ex.

But because she has a vagina, calls herself a feminist, and cried victim first you and other SJWs rally around her like the second coming of christ.

Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs?

[AmiMoJo]

You have given us a bunch of shitty blog posts, all referring to each other. Show some archived tweets or something. Where are the responses from Twitter or whatever to the reports made over those posts?

Just repeating the same lie a thousand times doesn't make it true.

Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs?

[JustAnotherOldGuy]

Nyberg is not only a vicious troll but also a self-admitted child predator who's openly been given pictures of people's children for sexual gratification,

Yep, and this has been documented repeatedly. If I'm not mistaken, she's even admitted to most of it.

Nyberg, Quinn, Sarkesian, Shives...they're the new fascists.

Don't agree with them? Then you're automatically a racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe etc etc etc. Look at what they tried to do to Dr. Phil Mason and tell me that's "fair play".

Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget blaming people for what their followers do!

Err, unless they like the person's politics, then it's just fine, carry on. Who'd bother to enforce the rules against anyone you agree with?

Re:better late than never

[epyT-R]

That is not how the word is used when discussing 'online violence.' It is equated with real-life physical violence.

Re:"hateful conduct"

[BradMajors]

Anyone who disagrees with cultural Marxism.

Re:Good.

[epyT-R]

Phone numbers are typically public information.

Is it 'screaming abuse' or simply criticism of stupid arguments from a lot of people all at once because they're hot on the topic? The long stream of responses is how twitter works. The point of twitter is to have a one-to-many interaction. These people are using the wrong medium if they don't like that. If they want the communication to remain one way, they should stick to blogs and turn the comments off.

No, free speech adherents think everyone has a right to speak their mind and support systems that allow this free exchange. The progressive censorship crowd thinks that society (or in this case, twitter/social media sites) should be responsible for shielding them from criticism while they remain free to lambast and police everyone else. Unfortunately, twitter has chosen the latter path with their 'trust and safety' council.

Re:Great, so when will they ban the SJWs

[pseudofrog]

AmiMoJo is asking for evidence regarding Shadow of Eternity's claims about Zoe Quinn. Curiously, nobody can provide it. Funny, huh?

Re:better late than never

[aliquis]

Replace violence with physical violence only and we've got something.

Threat of violence haven't become violence yet either, though people may of course fear it and it may still have an effect so I'll accept that (but it's still not actual violence.)