Twitter has said that it is ‘testing’ ways to simplify how it users can report abuse being made through the platform after it came under fire to react following rape threats being made against a campaigner for more women on bank notes.
Caroline Criado-Perez , who was involved in the movement that saw the Bank of England place author Jane Austen on notes last week, has involved police after receiving threatening tweets.
This led to an outcry for Twitter to install an abuse button, with high profile figures including Caitlin Moran calling for a boycott of the microblogging platform until it took more responsibility for the messages its users sent.
Twitter UK’s head of business, Tony Wang last night sent a few tweets in a bid to curb the growing unrest, claiming that the service was testing a service that would simplify reporting abuse (see tweets below) and that accounts that breached rules would be suspended.
The case of Criado-Perez has led to police making an arrest with confirmation that a 21-year-old was detained in Manchester on suspicion of harassment offences.
We take abuse seriously and will investigate reports made via https://t.co/mTEKNxddYz. For more info, see http://t.co/Q1TGkIieat.
— Tony Wang (@TonyW) July 27, 2013
We don't comment on individual accounts, but we have rules which people agree to abide by when they sign up to Twitter.
— Tony Wang (@TonyW) July 27, 2013
We encourage users to report an account for violation of the Twitter rules by using one of our report form: https://t.co/mTEKNxddYz
— Tony Wang (@TonyW) July 27, 2013
Also, we're testing ways to simplify reporting, e.g. within a Tweet by using the "Report Tweet" button in our iPhone app and on mobile web.
— Tony Wang (@TonyW) July 27, 2013
We will suspend accounts that, once reported to us, are found to be in breach of our rules.
— Tony Wang (@TonyW) July 27, 2013