Twitter Vows To Tackle Trolls And Abuse

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo admitted that his social networking site “sucks” at dealing with trolls and abuse. He believes those are the reasons why users have been turned away from the microblogging network.

Costolo’s memo to his Twitter staff leaked to tech news site Verge. The CEO said that the abusive behavior was driving users away from the social networking site. He is taking appropriate action to tackle both the trolls and the abusive messages. Twitter’s reputation has slightly decreased after a few high-profile users left the social networking site, citing trolls to blame.

“We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years. It’s no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.”

According to RTTNews, Costolo was willing to take the blame for Twitter’s decrease in growth and new users. He said that he will take timely action to deal with the trolls on Twitter.

“There’s no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It’s nobody else’s fault but mine, and it’s embarrassing.”

Costolo isn’t taking any punches when it comes to the abuse by trolls on Twitter. He’s planning to get started as soon as possible.

“We’re going to start kicking these people off right and left and making sure that when they issue their ridiculous attacks, nobody hears them. Everybody on the leadership team knows this is vital.”

Wall Street wants to know why the users are dwindling on Twitter. After a difficult year of becoming a public company, Twitter (TICKER: TWTR) is trying to make the right steps to change Wall Street’s negative perception about its company. Investors remain fixated on one measurement of Twitter: user growth.

Wall Street wants Twitter to prove that users are joining the network in large numbers and that they’re spending more time on Twitter. Wall Street also wants these reports after closing of regular trading, according to USA Today. Shyam Patil, an analyst with Wedbush Securities, wrote his argument for focusing on user growth.

“While revenue and profitability are important, we believe the focus remains on user growth (arguably the most important metric for the business) and engagement.”

Twitter ended its third quarter with 284 million monthly active users. That’s less than a 5 percent increase from its second quarter. Twitter’s stock has been down 40 percent over the past year, but the company is still shutting down reports.

Twitter is looking into other ventures, as it made a deal with Google for real-time search results. According to a report on the Inqusitr, the social network made a deal to include tweets in a real-time basis on the major tech giant’s search results. In the first half of 2015, tweets will appear in search results on Google as they are posted. Costolo has also been making other changes, such as placing its Promoted Tweets on third-party platforms.

Costolo hasn’t been clear about his strategy on Twitter. With the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call scheduled for Thursday afternoon, Costolo has to convince investors that he can continue to provide product and that Twitter is a safe place for all users. Twitter has 284 million registered users compared to Facebook’s 1.3 billion users. Addressing the problem of abusive message and trolls is a small step for the network to expand and retain its user base.

[Image: Kooroshication]