Twitter: measures against trolls help to improve the atmosphere

Twitter states that the influence of trolls and other annoying people has been curtailed in recent times, improving the atmosphere on the social network. This is partly due to the faster blocking of annoying accounts or to ask for identification.

That is what Bruce Daisley, who is in charge of the European branch of the social network at Twitter, said in an interview with The Independent. His company has recently taken several measures to deal with trolls and other people who cause annoying messages, and Daisley says they have paid off. “The measures we have taken correlate directly with a decrease in bad behavior,” said Daisley.

One of the ways to deal with annoying people is to ask for identification faster by linking a phone number to the account. This should prevent existing users from creating a new account every time to stay under the radar. Troll accounts are also blocked faster than before. Furthermore, Twitter encourages users to share their lists of blocked people so that annoying posters are noticed faster and more widely.

Many users have complained in recent years about the often anonymous people who posted unwanted, annoying or hateful messages on the website. Twitter responded by stating that it indeed had a “troll problem” and promised to address these individuals. Several measures, such as phone verification and curbing unwanted messages, had already been announced.