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Twitter planning a feature to let you auto-block and mute abusive accounts

Twitter planning a feature to let you auto-block and mute abusive accounts

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The company is also working on a new ‘safety mode’

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Twitter safety mode mockup.
Twitter safety mode mockup.
Image: Twitter

Twitter plans to introduce a way for you to automatically block and mute abusive accounts, the company announced at its Analyst Day presentation on Thursday.

It appears the feature will be a toggle you can turn on in a new “safety mode,” according to a slide in the Analyst Day slide deck. Here’s Twitter’s description of how the toggle will work if you flip it on: “Automatically block accounts that appear to break the Twitter Rules, and mute accounts that might be using insults, name-calling, strong language, or hateful remarks.”

With the new safety mode, Twitter will automatically detect accounts that “might be acting abusive or spammy” and limit how those accounts can engage with your content for seven days, according to the slide.

We’ve asked Twitter for more information about the new features and will update this article with anything we hear.

Twitter has historically struggled with abuse on its platform and has released a number of features over the years to help reduce offensive content, such as letting people hide replies and letting users control who can reply to an individual tweet. The company also has some automated tools in place to remove abusive tweets, and it said in 2019 that it removes more than 50 percent of abusive tweets before users report them.