How is Twitter changing after recent boycotts?

After the suspension of actress Rose McGowan’s account and resulting backlash of #WomenBoycottTwitter, Twitter is responding with new policies.

The massive repercussions of the Harvey Weinstein story and the response of alleged victim Rose McGowan has been felt across Hollywood, politics, and now Twitter.

Responding to the backlash faced after the tone-deaf suspension of actress Rose McGowan’s account and resulting boycott across the network, Twitter is ramping efforts to tackle harassment and gross misconduct. However, with a history of spotty enforcement, many lack faith and call it too little too late.

In an eight-tweet thread, CEO Jack Dorsey addressed the criticism that spawned #WomenBoycottTwitter by restating the company’s efforts to combat harassment and announcing a more aggressive stance in Twitter’s rules and enforcement.

The response was perhaps not as laudatory as Dorsey may have expected, seen by some as a day late and a dollar short. Although the changes are widely welcomed, many were still skeptical and called out Twitter for their history of frustratingly delayed and inconsistent responses past reports of abuse.

The day before Dorsey’s tweetstorm, Twitter unlocked McGowan’s account and issued an official statement explaining their actions, although not precisely admitting fault.

Echoing many of their critics who accuse the company of hypocritical responses to violations of their terms of service (specifically President Trump) the actress fired back them in her first post back. She tweeted:

An internal email sent from Twitter’s Head of Safety Policy further detailed their strategy on tackling gross misconduct across the board and imposing much harsher consequences. It will also be a tag-team effort with all of Twitter, relying heavily on users to root out violators through “bystander reporting.” It read:

"We are going to update the Twitter Rules to make it clear that this type of behavior is unacceptable. We will continue taking enforcement action when we receive a report from someone directly involved in the conversation. Once our improvements to bystander reporting go live, we will also leverage past interaction signals (eg things like block, mute, etc) to help determine whether something may be unwanted and action the content accordingly."

The social media platform has become the primary outlet for victims of Harvey Weinstein’s abuse as well as women everywhere who have had similarly devastating experiences. Not only have McGowan’s statements after the expose opened up the discussion harassment, but also become a catalyst for change.

Next: More on #WomenBoycottTwitter

As the conversation on abuse and sexual harassment continues, protecting those who come forward is more critical than ever and the very least Twitter can do.