Twitter now flags tweets in your timeline that violate its rules

Bye trolls

An open and conversational social network sounds great on paper, but Twitter has become a notorious incubator for internet trolls. With people finding new and creative ways to flout its rules all the time, it's harder than ever for the social network to police its users.

Over the last couple of years Twitter has been making a concerted effort to clean up the site, with a particular focus on 'fake news' and abusive tweets, but it still largely relies on its users reporting tweets that break the rules.

Now Twitter has rolled out a new feature that will make the reporting process more transparent, with reported tweets being replaced with the following notice: "This tweet is no longer available because it violated the Twitter Rules."

The company explained the new feature in the video below - you'll need to click the Tweet to watch it:

As well as highlighting tweets that flout the rules, Twitter will also hide tweets that you have reported, meaning they won't keep appearing in your feed - instead, they will be hidden behind a notice stating "you reported this tweet".

This will likely prove an important step in making Twitter a safer space for all users, particularly if you are reporting a tweet that is upsetting or graphics - and if you do need to see the tweet again, you can tap the notification to view it.

The new feature follows a big push from the company in 2017 to reduce "hateful content and abusive behavior", as well as improving its appeals system to ensure that users are not unfairly penalized for tweets incorrectly flagged as breaking the rules.


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