Twitter announced changes to its abuse protections policy Tuesday, broadening out what constitutes as violent threats.
Moving beyond “direct, specific threats of violence against others,” the social giant is outlawing “threats of violence against others or promot[ing] violence against others,” it said in a blog post.
The former policy was “unduly narrow,” Twitter said, limiting its ability to take action against certain acts.
“The updated language better describes the range of prohibited content and our intention to act when users step over the line into abuse,” the social company continued.
Twitter is also implementing a new enforcement action that allows it to lock abusive users for specific amounts of time. This will give it more options when multiple users harass a single user or groups.
Other changes include a new product currently being tested that will help identify suspected abusive tweets, limiting their reach.
“This feature takes into account a wide range of signals and context that frequently correlates with abuse including the age of the account itself, and the similarity of a Tweet to other content that our safety team has in the past independently determined to be abusive,” Twitter said.
The abuse protection changes come a day after Twitter made dramatic changes to its direct messaging tool, changing it to allow the option of not having to be followed by a user to message them directly.
As TheWrap reported, the changes sparked immediate online outrage, with many users claiming the change will actually increase harassment.