Twitter to begin filtering abusive tweets to prevent harassment

In a bid to reduce abuse on Twitter, the microblogging website will introduce new optional filters to prevent a user from being notified when certain accounts tweet at them, a media report said on Thursday.

The new filters will also include accounts without profile photos -- called "eggs" for the default egg picture given to new Twitter accounts -- as well as accounts without verified phone numbers or email addresses, The Verge reported.

"By forcing users to upload photos and verify phone numbers and email addresses if they hope to be seen by their targets, Twitter is making would-be harassers do a little more work when they create new troll accounts," the report noted.

Making harassers do more work is one of the best tools that Twitter might have to reduce harassment.

"Our platform supports the freedom to share any viewpoint but if an account continues to repeatedly violate the Twitter Rules, we will consider taking further action," the company was quoted as saying.

Twitter is reportedly augmenting the new filters with machine learning.

The moment Twitter will detect that accounts are repeatedly tweeting at accounts that they don't not follow, or engaging in unspecified other activities likely to signal abuse, the company will temporarily limit their access to the platform.

It also said that it would try to provide more information for people who do report harassment on the platform.

With this initiative, a user can now mute keywords from the timeline with an option of muting them for specific amounts of time.