Twitter looks like it’s taking abuse on the platform seriously… finally

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Twitter finally appears to be tackling one of its most serious problems – abuse.

In an apparent mea culpa that it has so far failed to tackle an issue that has plagued the platform for some time – and after many previous claims that it is trying to fix it – chief executive Jack Dorsey said the tech company is now "taking a completely new approach" to the problem.

That includes "having a more open and real-time dialogue about it every step of the way", he tweeted.

Read more: MPs have blasted Twitter over failure to tackle anti-Semitism

Twitter's vice president of engineering Ed Ho issued a series of Tweets updating his followers on the plans, admitting it was not doing enough previously.

"We heard you, we didn't move fast enough last year; now we're thinking about progress in days and hours not weeks and months."

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Dorsey solicited suggestions from users at the turn of the year, about how it could improve the company, which has lost more than 30 per cent of its value since IPOing in 2013.

Abuse was cited as one of the biggest issues.

But Twitter has been trying to tackle trolling since way back in 2014 with little success, and the problem has been festering away as the tech company's growth staled and attracting new users became a problem.

Read more: This Twitter founder thinks tech could become the next big tobacco

Twitter has now become Donald Trump's de facto way of talking to the world – unprecedented for a President – and does not hold back on his attacks on his perceived enemies such as the New York Times, Obama and even politicians within his own party.

Hardly the happy sharing place one imagines the Twitter team had envisioned. Asked last month how he felt about the President's prominence on Twitter, Dorsey said: "complicated".