Twitter has announced new ways for users to tackle abusive messages and hateful content on its platform.

The “mute” button, which enables users to not see tweets from individual accounts, is being extended to prevent tweets containing chosen key words or phrases appearing in the notifications bar.

It will also enable users to opt out of seeing conversations they are added to.

There will be more categories for reporting offensive material as well.

Twitter admitted the steps would not remove abusive conduct from the platform altogether.

“No single action by us would do that,”

“Instead, we commit to rapidly improving Twitter based on everything we observe and learn.”

“Our goal is a faster and more transparent process,”

Sinead McSweeney, Vice-President for Public Policy and Communications

Ms McSweeney admitted dealing with abuse on the site in public and “in real time” was a challenge and hateful speech had been a “growing trend” on the platform as well as on the internet as a whole.

She said all support team staff had been “retrained” to be more aware of cultural and gender issues in order to provide more effective enforcement.

The news comes three months after Twitter announced it had suspended 360,000 accounts for violating its policies on the promotion of terrorism and violent extremism.

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