Twitter chief: I am ashamed how badly we are dealing with trolls

Twitter’s chief executive says the company “sucks” at dealing with trolls and he is “ashamed” of how poorly it has dealt with the issue. Dick Costolo said in recent memos to employees that bullying behaviour could be driving users away, and he has promised tougher action to deal with abusers. He wrote: “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years.”

We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

Twitter’s chief executive Dick Costolo

The memos follow an internal employee forum in which a staff member asked what could be done to address abuse on the social network. Costolo promised to start “kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them”. Twitter recently streamlined the process for reporting abuse, and in November it teamed up with an advocacy group to investigate harassment against women. According to studies, women are disproportionately affected by online abuse.

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