Twitter quietly introduces abusive language filter

Twitter has been busy trying to stem the flood of abusive users and trolls, the latter of which it has been given a lot of grief over in recent times. Among its different efforts is a new one the social network has rolled out without much fanfare: a filtering tool that allows verified users in particular to filter out tweets containing abusive language. Verified users have been reporting seeing it roll out, and it appears that it is only available for the iOS mobile app at this time, though it'll likely be appearing elsewhere in the future.

The feature is called "Quality filter", and it is designed to improve the quality of your Twitter experience by trimming out all tweets that "contain threats, offensive or abusive language, duplicate content, or [that] are sent from suspicious accounts."

It's a welcomed feature, in that the user no longer has to see the tweets, even though they exist. This differs from the other features Twitter has rolled out, most of which revolve around reporting the tweet once it is received. The downside there is that the user still has to see the tweet in order to report it, and therefore the quality of their Twitter experience drops and with it their desire to remain.

Twitter has confirmed to Ars Technica that the feature has rolled out, saying that it currently exists for some verified users who are using the iOS app. There's no word on when or if this same feature will be rolling out on Android/Desktop (though that seems likely), and whether it'll also be coming for non-verified users (which seems somewhat less likely).

SOURCE: Ars Technica