Twitter takes abuse and harassment seriously. Now, the social media platform is taking a stand against Twitter bullying with help.
Bullying and harassment comes everywhere and in today's world, the worst comes from those with massive weapons and access to social media.
Focusing on the latter, Twitter is forming what they call a Twitter Trust & Safety Council.
The council is a group of safety advocates, community groups and academics that aims to maintain an open dialogue on Twitter on the prevention of bullying and online abuse.
Harrassment and bullying has always been a struggle for social media networks. Trolls are everywhere and it's getting more and more difficult for companies like Twitter to shut them down. Even with a strengthened guideline on posting and interaction, it is still unavoidable for a user to be violated in one way or another online.
It has never been easy for Twitter, it has been challenged with harrassment and bullying for a long time but Dick Costolo, CEO of Twitter (a year ago), shares that the company was struggling to control abusive tweets from users. "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," as stated in a memo he issued a long time ago.
Now, Twitter realizes it can't do this alone. They have sought help. Patricia Cartes, head of Twitter's Global Policy Outreach explains that their goal is... "To ensure people can continue to express themselves freely and safely on Twitter, we must provide more tools and policies."
She stresses that it requires the help of the current 320 million users to control online abuse with the community of experts they reached out to which builds on safety and free expression.
Cartes adds that there are more than 40 organizations involved with the council such as NetSafe, GLAAD, the Internet Watch Foundation, the Wahid Institute, the U.K. Safer Internet Centre and Childnet International.
Getting outside help was a smart move for the company because Ezra Gottheil, a Tech analyst, calls it a neighborhood. "If this is going on, people don't want to go there," he says.
