Micro-blogging site Twitter has introduced new features that add the ability to block unwanted notifications from unknown users in a move to help silence abusive behaviour from the so-called trolls in the platform. With this latest update, you can now mute notifications from accounts you do not follow, users who do not follow you and newly created accounts. The new features also allow users to filter out notifications based on specific words or phrases as well as notifications related to automated content.
To activate the new features for web browsers, go to your Notifications timeline, click on Settings, and choose the box or boxes of the filters you want to activate. On Android-based devices, you can set your filters by going to your Notifications timeline. From there, tap on the gear icon, choose advanced filters, and check the box of the filters you want to enable. Called advanced filter settings, the new restrictions are part of Twitter’s effort to enable users to control the content that they see on the micro-blogging site. Most recently, in March, Twitter added the ability to turn off notifications from accounts that do not have a valid email address, phone numbers and personal profile photos. That means accounts that use only the Twitter egg as their default profile photo have been muted, most probably because these accounts are either bots or fake accounts that aim only to spread abuse on the platform.
It is a sad reality that Twitter has been swarmed by abusive accounts, and the company never lacks the measures to stop them. Early in March of this year, Twitter began to implement new measures meant to detect abusive accounts on top of sanctioning abusive Tweets and replies. A month before that, the San Francisco-based company also rolled out a measure to prevent abuses in search results, hide potentially abusive tweets from Timelines, and block users from creating new accounts following suspension of their previous ones. According to Ed Ho, the vice president of engineering at Twitter, the move was intended to maintain a safe place for its users. However, the latest measure does not seem to help in suppressing abusive behavior on the site, but only hides them from legitimate users.