Twitter has announced changes in the way it handles users who may not be violating its policies but who are ‘distorting conversations’.
It has identified patterns of behaviour that it associates with troll-like accounts. This includes users who repeatedly tag users who don’t follow them and signing into multiple Twitter accounts simultaneously. This behaviour can be spotted by an algorithm that does not need to analyse the content of the tweets (thus avoiding any accusations of political bias).
Such tweets will now be hidden in searches and conversations, but they will still be available on Twitter. Users can click on ‘show more replies’ to surface tweets identified by the algorithm. Early tests have seen a reduction in abuse reports.
Sources: Twitter; Endgadget; TheNextWeb.