Online communities, just like offline communities, have their share of people that misbehave – and Twitter is no exception. The social network has launched its new Twitter Safety Centre to help people stay safe in the Twitterverse.
The safety centre aggregates all of Twitter Inc.’s resources relating to safety and privacy online, including tools, advice, and information on Twitter’s policies and how to report online harassment and other behaviour that may be in violation of Twitter’s terms of reference.
“The Safety Centre is a resource for anyone to learn about online safety, on Twitter and beyond. This resource is a result of our work with online safety experts who continuously help us to promote good digital citizenship,” said Patricia Cartes, Twitter’s head of global trust & safety outreach, in a blog post. “We’re excited to make this knowledge easily accessible to you via this new site. The Safety Centre is organized around Twitter’s tools and policies to address your safety, with sections created especially for teens, parents and educators.”
Twitter has made a number of recent changes on the safety front. The blocking mechanism was revised to make it easier to flag tweets for review, the backend process improved for Twitter to respond to flagged tweets more quickly, and the ability to see all the accounts you’ve blocked in one place. The process for reporting harassment was streamlined, and you can now export and import lists of blocked accounts.
The safety centre groups resources around Tools, Policies and Enforcement. It walks users through the tools available to them for privacy, such as muting, blocking and protected tweets, as well as information on what Twitter considers harassment and what it considers free and acceptable speech, and its rules for parody accounts. There are also resources geared towards Teens, Families and Educators to make it easier for them to get the help and information they need.
“These resources should help you quickly understand how to manage your experience on Twitter and also understand how the community and Twitter take action together when our policies are violated,” said Cartes. “As Twitter evolves along with the world of online safety, we will continue to create new materials for the Safety Centre.”