Twitter is growing a approach for customers to manage who can point out them • TechCrunch

Twitter is growing a function that has the potential to curb harassment and bullying on the social community. App engineer Jane Manchun Wong found that the corporate is growing a approach for customers to manage who can point out them on Twitter. In keeping with a screenshot posted by Wong, the brand new controls would give customers the choice to restrict mentions to individuals they observe or flip off mentions altogether. In fact, you’d nonetheless have the choice to permit anybody to say you, which is how Twitter at present operates.

Giving customers the choice to show off mentions altogether could be a dramatic shift for the corporate, however it will additionally give customers a method to defend themselves from all kinds of bullying and harassment they face on the platform.

Though customers who’re focused by trolls at present have the choice to dam or mute customers, individually blocking abusive accounts or muting particular tweets doesn’t scale in cases when there could also be a whole bunch of accounts concerned within the focused abuse.

As with all different take a look at function, it’s unknown when or if Twitter plans to roll out the brand new controls formally. When requested concerning the attainable upcoming change, a spokesperson from Twitter advised TechCrunch that the corporate doesn’t have something to share for the time being. It’s value noting that Twitter privateness designer Dominic Camozzi confirmed the brand new controls have been within the works in a now-deleted tweet, as famous by The Verge, and had requested customers for suggestions.

If Twitter decides to roll out the function, it will joins the social community’s present viewers administration options. Two years in the past, Twitter gave all customers the choice to restrict replies to their tweets. The function helps you to restrict replies to individuals you observe or the individuals you talked about within the tweet. With this function, trolls can nonetheless sadly Quote Tweet one other person’s tweet as a method to ship abuse. The brand new controls uncovered by Wong would seemingly do away with this workaround and defend customers from incessant trolls.

Twitter additionally rolled out its “Unmentioning” function to all customers earlier this 12 months. The function permits customers to take away their identify from one other person’s tweet so that they’re not tagged in it and any ongoing chatter round it gained’t hold showing of their mentions feed. The brand new controls would take this feature even additional by stopping your deal with from being talked about within the first place.

The brand new controls could be a welcome addition to the platform and it’s good to know that Twitter is taking a look at methods to assist customers defend themselves from abuse past the prevailing anti-abuse options. Co-ordinated trolling assaults have been an undesirable a part of Twitter’s platform and the corporate has incessantly been criticized for not doing sufficient to forestall harassment and abuse.

Though public figures could also be extra prone to face greater ranges of harassment than different forms of customers, it’s an issue that isn’t restricted to customers with a public profile, particularly when racist abuse stays an issue on Twitter. The brand new controls could be a step towards defending customers on-line from all kinds of abuse and trolling.