How to Automatically Block Trolls With Twitter’s New “Safe Mode”
Emphasizing rampant harassment on Twitter has now become a cliché; we all know this is a hotbed of abuse and cyberbullying. Fortunately, the company seems to finally heed the calls from its user base to improve anti-retaliation tools with the new Safe Mode feature .
When enabled, the Safe Mode algorithm looks for accounts that are sending hated tweets and adds them to the user’s blacklist in advance, but only if you haven’t followed or interacted with them yet.
Safe Mode is still under testing and is currently only available to a select group of users. You can check this option and enable it in your Twitter profile settings:
- Open Twitter, then go to Settings & Privacy> Privacy & Security.
- Click the Safe Mode button (if available).
- Tap the slider to enable Safe Mode.
- You can also select “Automatically blocked accounts” on this screen to view and manage the list of users blocked for you by the algorithm.
Twitter says it is “prioritizing people from marginalized communities and women journalists” for the initial group of safe mode feedback, but it will eventually make it to everyone’s settings menus in the future.
This is a wise move on the part of Twitter. Study after study shows that women and marginalized groups disproportionately face the worst abuses on Twitter , especially those in public roles such as journalists, politicians, content creators and celebrities, so it’s good to see Twitter prioritize them in the first place. safety and feedback.
Other Ways to Block Twitter Trolls
Safe Mode seems like a step in the right direction, but we won’t know if it actually makes Twitter safer to use until it’s widely available. It is impossible not to think that the odds are against it; trolling almost feels like an integral part of the Twitter experience , and it’s hard to trust the company after its disappointingly inconsistent history of responding and preventing this harassment in the first place.
Luckily, for those without access to Safe Mode – or if you feel the feature doesn’t live up to its name – there are other ways to block Twitter trolls:
- The most accessible is to manually disable or block the account yourself. You can mute or block it directly from someone’s tweet, your private messages, or their Twitter profile. Disabled accounts won’t show up on your timeline, while blocking accounts also prevents them from seeing your tweets, following you, or sending you messages.
- You can change who is allowed to reply to your tweets .
- You can also turn off words from your timeline and notifications under Settings & Privacy> Privacy & Security> Mute & Block> Mute Words.
- Another option is to use crowdsourced blacklists, which you can import under Settings & Privacy> Privacy & Security> Security> Blocked Accounts .
- You can use third-party services like Megablock , which automatically block anyone who follows or likes the tweet you specify.
- If all else fails, setting your Twitter account to Protected makes your tweets and profile private and new followers must request approval. This option is available under Settings & Privacy> Your Account> Account Information> Protected Tweets.
These additional settings and services can help make Twitter more secure, but none are perfect.
There is no way to manually block every troll or disable every potentially problematic word. Blacklists can suddenly change if an administrator adds or removes an account from the list, and there is always the chance that you will block someone you didn’t want when using an app like Megablock. And not everyone can make their profiles private, especially if they rely on Twitter for networking, public relations, or even their income.
Hopefully new features like Safe Mode and rumored tweet autoarchive and follower removal tools fill the gaps and give users more proactive options.
[ TechRadar ]