Twitter has added a way for users to report multiple abusive tweets at the same the time, marking one more incremental step by the microblogging service to crack down on harassment.
Until now, Twitter (TWTR) users could only report tweets individually, which made it difficult to fully convey an abusive situation. “This update makes it easier for you to provide us with more information about the extent of abuse and reduces the time it takes to do so,” Twitter safety engineer Hao Tang said in a blog post. “That added context often helps us investigate issues and get them resolved faster.”
Users were already able to report an abusive account, although the new feature makes it faster. Previously, users couldn’t attach any tweets when reporting an account, which meant that Twitter’s safety team had to ask for additional information after a report was submitted or look for the abusive tweets themselves, a Twitter spokeswoman explained to Fortune. The new ability to attach multiple tweets as part of the initial reporting process will make it faster. But even with the new system, all the tweets reported at once must be from the same account.
Twitter has long been criticized for failing to aggressively police harassment on its service. Last year, then-CEO Dick Costolo acknowledged and took full responsibility for the company’s shortcomings in an internal memo.
“We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them,” he wrote.
But so far, Twitter’s improvements have been slow and incremental, and still lack any significant means for users to protect themselves such as prohibiting others from including their user handle in their tweets, for example. Monday’s update is a small step, but it’s a step.
