Twitter introduces ‘safe search’ and other measures to fight abuse

The organization is struggling to rid its platform of online harassment and bullying, and said that making Twitter a “safer place” is its “primary focus.”

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On Tuesday, Twitter announced through its corporate blog that it is introducing new tools to help it combat the scourge of negativity that some say have kept the platform from being acquired.

The announcement includes measures to cease the creation of new abusive accounts, introduce safe search results and collapse abusive and low-quality tweets.

The move also follows previous attempts to cut down on harassment, which include changes to Twitter’s conduct policy and the ability to mute keywords and phrases in users’ notifications.

Banishing trolls and cutting down on harassment has become Twitter’s “primary focus,” the organization said:

Making Twitter a safer place is our primary focus. We stand for freedom of expression and people being able to see all sides of any topic. That’s put in jeopardy when abuse and harassment stifle and silence those voices. We won’t tolerate it and we’re launching new efforts to stop it.

Twitter’s vice president of engineering, Ed Ho, wrote in the blog post:

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