Twitter has rolled out lists of trolls that can be shared among users and enables a one-click block from harassment on the social network.
The new feature forms part of Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo’s pledge to help users protect themselves and deal with being attacked and harassed by trolls – a common problem for certain users on the social network.
“This feature is yet another step towards making Twitter safer for everyone and will be available to some of our users starting today and all users in the coming week,” said Twitter user safety engineer Xiaoyun Zhang in a blog post.
Blocking an account stops trolls from viewing a user’s profile, sending them mentions or interacting with them in their feed. Until now each account had to be blocked individually.
The system worked fine for most users who were only occasionally forced to block singular users from time to time. However, those who are subject to coordinated or sustained attacks by trolls can be quickly overwhelmed by hundreds of users, making blocking them all difficult. Shareable lists are aimed at solving that problem.
Twitter also allows users to mute accounts, which does not block them from viewing their feed, but does stop mentions from troll accounts showing up on their timeline.
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