Twitter has announced that it is expanding efforts to protect its users from abuse and harassment, including stopping banned users from creating new accounts and a new “safe search” feature.

Twitter has been under fire for failing to address hate and abuse on the site since its founding a decade ago. Its reputation as a free speech haven has come into conflict with efforts to protect users.

The crackdown is not limited to far-right extremists. In August, Twitter said it had suspended about 360,000 accounts over the previous year for violating its policies banning the promotion of terrorism and violent extremism. But the company said the changes announced on Tuesday were “unrelated to that and focused on abuse and harassment”.

Twitter also said it was creating a “safe search” feature that removed tweets with potentially sensitive content and tweets from blocked and muted accounts from search results. The tweets will still exist on Twitter if people look for them, but they will not appear in general search results.

Twitter is also making some replies less visible so only the most relevant conversations surface.

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Get Safe Online is the UK’s leading source of factual and easy-to-understand information on online safety. Their website offers advice on how you can protect yourself, your computers and devices, and your business against the likes of fraud, identity theft, viruses and other potential online problems.

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