New quality filter to '˜give more control' to Twitter users

Twitter has announced a new 'quality filter' designed to root out posts to the social media site users do not want to see or could be abusive.

Twitter will introduce a 'quality control' function. Picture: John Devlin

The new feature is to be made available to the sites over 300 million users in the “coming days” and will work for the app versions of the service as well as for users on Twitter’s website. The site has been repeatedly criticised for failing to properly combat harassment.

A new notification feature is also being introduced which will enable users to only see notifications from users that they already follow - a move that appears to focus on reducing abuse on the site by cutting down the prominence such messages have when sent.

“We’re introducing some new features that will give you more control over what you see and who you interact with on Twitter, rolling out to everyone in the coming days,” the social media site said in a blog post.

“Last year we began testing a quality filter setting and we’re now rolling out a feature for everyone. When turned on, the filter can improve the quality of tweets you see by using a variety of signals, such as account origin and behaviour.

“Turning it on filters lower-quality content, like duplicate tweets or content that appears to be automated, from your notifications and other parts of your Twitter experience. It does not filter content from people you follow or accounts you’ve recently interacted with - and depending on your preferences, you can turn it on or off in your notifications settings.”

Twitter added that the quality filter has been designed to improve in the future, and that more updates could follow.

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