Twitter’s latest feature makes it easier to report threats to the police

In an attempt to help deal with abuse and harassment, Twitter has rolled out a new feature which makes it easier to report threats on its service to the police.

Twitter’s Blog posted that users can file a report by simply clicking on, ‘Email Report’. After this, Twitter will send the user an email that packages the threatening tweet along with the URL. It also adds in the responsible Twitter username and URL, and a time-stamp as well as your account information and the time-stamp of your report.

The blog further explained that the summary of the threat report will help users easily file complaint to their local law agencies, if they are concerned about their physical safety. Though a report by TechCrunch does say that, the new feature isn’t exactly a one-click process. Your report will not be presented immediately in front of the law enforcement agents directly.

The email will conclude with a link providing Twitter’s Law Enforcement Guidelines which provides detailed information for authorities. It also includes information on how they can go about making requests for non-public user account information from Twitter itself.


The Verge raises the subject that users are in fact, on their own in terms of figuring out the right law enforcement agency they need to contact. An important point to be taken into consideration here is whether, anyone can get the authorities to take an online threat seriously as well.

A few days ago, the micro-blogging site also announced that it would be taking serious measures against user abuse by introducing new rules that prohibit users from posting nude or sexual photos of other people, without their consent. These new rules have been added to the Twitter Rules page.


Earlier, Twitter CEO Dick Costolo received heavy scrutiny when he admitted that the site was awful when it comes to abuse and harassment. At that moment, he said that he has plans to change how Twitter deals with such users who are on Twitter just to violate and abuse others. Since then, the company has been struggling to slow growth of the user base.