Twitter will be tougher on 'non-consensual' nudity, hate symbols, and violent tweets after user backlash (TWTR)

Twitter will take a tougher stance on moderating "non-consensual" nudity, hate symbols, and threats of violence, according to an internal email obtained by Wired that details the forthcoming changes.

The changes to Twitter's policy rules follow recent backlash the company received for temporarily banning the account of actress Rose McGowan after she accused Ben Affleck of lying about his knowledge of producer Harvey Weinstein's alleged sexual harassment.

While Twitter later said that McGowan's account was locked due to her posting a personal phone number, thousands of women tweeted the hashtag #WomenBoycottTwitter in protest of her account suspension. Twitter has faced sharp criticism in recent months for not doing enough to curb abuse and harassment on its platform.

In a series of tweets late last Friday, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said that the company had decided to "take a more aggressive stance in our rules and how we enforce them."

In an email detailing some of the changes to the company's Trust and Safety Council, Twitter said it would place stricter rules around so-called revenge porn, hate symbols, and tweets that "glorify" violence.

You can read the full email, which was first published by Wired and confirmed by Twitter to Business Insider, below:

"Dear Trust & Safety Council members,

I’d like to follow up on Jack’s Friday night Tweetstorm about upcoming policy and enforcement changes. Some of these have already been discussed with you via previous conversations about the Twitter Rules update. Others are the result of internal conversations that we had throughout last week.

Here’s some more information about the policies Jack mentioned as well as a few other updates that we’ll be rolling out in the weeks ahead.

Non-consensual nudity

Current approach

Updated approach

Unwanted sexual advances

Current approach

Updated approach

Hate symbols and imagery (new)

Violent groups (new)

Tweets that glorify violence (new)

We realize that a more aggressive policy and enforcement approach will result in the removal of more content from our service. We are comfortable making this decision, assuming that we will only be removing abusive content that violates our Rules. To help ensure this is the case, our product and operational teams will be investing heavily in improving our appeals process and turnaround times for their reviews.

In addition to launching new policies, updating enforcement processes and improving our appeals process, we have to do a better job explaining our policies and setting expectations for acceptable behavior on our service. In the coming weeks, we will be:

We have a lot of work ahead of us and will definitely be turning to you all for guidance in the weeks ahead. We will do our best to keep you looped in on our progress.

All the best, Head of Safety Policy"

Twitter will be tougher on 'non-consensual' nudity, hate symbols, and violent tweets after user backlash (TWTR)

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