Twitter's Misleading User Experience When Reporting Abuse
2 min read
Twitter's history of combating trolls and abuse has been problematic, at best.
Recently, I discovered a corner in their toolkit that highlights why Twitter's current efforts remain ineffective.
When reporting a person for abuse (or, more likely, a bot), Twitter leads you through a multi-step process.
In the first step, we select an account or a tweet to report.
In the second step, we define the reason for the report.
In the third step, we provide additional details.
In the fourth step, we indicate who is being harassed.
In the fifth step, we select up to five tweets that demonstrate the harassment.
In the sixth step, we decide whether we want to block the account, mute the account, or do neither. When we click "Done", the offending tweets we reported are no longer visible. Voila. The process has worked.
Except, it hasn't. Despite appearances, Twitter has done nothing to address the abuse. When you are logged in, you can't see the Tweets you reported. To the rest of the world - including, literally, everyone who isn't you - the content is still visible. This almost certainly includes search engines.
From your perspective, it actually looks like Twitter has done something, but from a practical perspective, Twitter has engaged in a game of smoke and mirrors. This happens regardless of whether or not we select "Block" or "Mute"; Twitter still hides the tweets you reported from you, and you alone.
This is dangerous. If a person has been doxxed on Twitter and they report the tweet, Twitter's UX creates the misleading impression that the offending content has been removed. The solution to this problem is simple: Twitter should let the "Block" or "Mute" options work as intended. While this wouldn't fix Twitter's abysmal record of responding to abuse, it would at least provide a more honest user experience.
When Twitter automatically hides offensive content from the people who have reported it, they create the impression that they have done something, when they have done nothing. Design choices like this demonstrates Twitter's apathy towards effectively addressing hate and abuse on their platform.
