In the wake of leaked February statements by Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, the social media platform has rolled out a number of tools to help users deal with abuse, threats, and other rule-breaking content. However, those mostly consisted of improved reporting capabilities—meaning users may still see the nasty stuff; they could just tattle on it more efficiently.
That changed on Monday when Twitter quietly unveiled its first major filter for the service. After seeing the filter pop up in a post by tech entrepreneur Anil Dash, Ars confirmed with a Twitter spokesperson that “quality filtering” has gone live for a select number of “verified” Twitter users, so long as those users enable the option in the notifications settings of Twitter’s iOS app.
The filter includes a brief explanation, saying that it “aims” to block any replies in the notifications tab “that contain threats, offensive or abusive language, duplicate content,” or posts written by “suspicious accounts.” The option does not further clarify what Twitter will characterize as “suspicious” or “offensive” content.
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