Tony Wang, the general manager of Twitter U.K., took to his account today to “personally apologize to the women who have experienced abuse on Twitter and for what they have gone through.” Wang went on to write that abuse is “simply not acceptable,” adding that “there is more we can and will be doing to protect our users against abuse.” The British police are looking into eight separate claims of abuse on the microblogging social network, reports the Guardian.
The increased attention into the abuse suffered by women on Twitter over the past week coincided with three female journalists reporting that they had received bomb threats and a member of parliament received rape threats on the microblogging site. That sparked a massive online campaign to get Twitter to add a “report abuse” button to tweets, notes the BBC. Twitter was eager on Saturday to show that it is listening to its users and announced it had updated its rules.
“It comes down to this: people deserve to feel safe on Twitter,” the company wrote in its U.K. blog. The company has updated its rules “to clarify that we do not tolerate abusive behaviour.” Twitter also noted that the in-tweet report button that is now stander in its latest iOS app will soon be available on Android and Twitter.com.
