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Twitter halts verification after backlash over Charlottesville organizer
Over the last month, Twitter seemed to finally wake up to the need to fight the rampant hate speech and abuse that happens on its platform. That made yesterday's decision to verify Jason Kessler, the leader of the white supremacist rally that took place in Charlottesville, VA this summer, incredibly odd (or incredibly foolish). Regardless, the blue checkmark is firmly in place on Kessler's account, and users pretty quickly told Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey they weren't happy about this move. This morning, Twitter responded -- not by revoking Kessler's verified status, but by saying it was pausing all general verifications to resolve confusion around what being verified really means. "Verification was meant to authenticate identity & voice," reads a tweet on the company's support account, "but it is interpreted as an endorsement or an indicator of importance."
Twitter says everyone, even Trump, has to follow the rules
Earlier this week, journalists asked Twitter's VP of Trust and Safety, Del Harvey, whether the company could really treat President Trump's Twitter account the same way it does everyone else's. After first saying that she couldn't discuss individual accounts, which is a response Twitter representatives tend to use, Harvey added, "The rules are the rules, we enforce them the same way for everybody," as reported by Recode.
Twitter will soon filter out abusive replies to tweets
Twitter is delivering three new tools to help battle abusive users just one week after admitting it hasn't moved fast enough to curb rampant harassment taking place on the platform. In a blog post published this morning, VP of engineering Ed Ho announced three new features that'll be on Twitter soon. Perhaps the most immediately useful is a filter that hides "abusive or low-quality" tweets by default. It sounds similar to the "quality filter" that tries to remove trolls from your @ mentions.
Twitter's troll problem likely killed Disney's bid
The last few months have seen many reports about massive companies like Disney, Verizon, Google and Microsoft purchasing Twitter, which continues to struggle with questions about its value and utility. Disney ultimately pulled out, and a new report from Bloomberg claims its because of the company's toxic image. That toxicity stems from ongoing concerns about online abuse taking place on Twitter, something the company has been working on but ultimately failed to change in any meaningful way thus far.
Twitter is letting all users filter out trolls from their notifications
Twitter has been failing to deal with abuse on its platform for a good long time now, but it seems like the company might finally be taking some substantive action. Twitter just posted a blog detailing two new features as part of its notification settings that should be rolling out to all users soon. The first is a so-called "quality filter" that attempts to reduce unpleasant or abusive @ mentions you might receive. Twitter says it filters out tweets based on a variety of factors including "account origin and behavior."
