Twitter’s chief executive Dick Costolo says site will start “kicking people off left right and centre” as it tackles trolls
Dick Costolo, chief executive of Twitter, has admitted that the company is not doing enough to tackle harassment and abuse.
"We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," he wrote in an internal memo seen by The Verge earlier this week.
"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,” he continued.
A large number of Twitter trolling cases have come to the media's attention in recent years and, according to research by the Pew Centre, threats of physical abuse, violence and stalking are made via the platform a daily basis.
The company has taken some steps to solve the problem – in November 2014 it teamed up with an advocacy group to investigate harassment against women. But reporting abuse to Twitter remains a complex and difficult process, according to critics.
Costolo, who was appointed chief executive of the company in 2010, said he did not believe nearly enough had been done to solve the problem, describing the situation as embarrassing and taking full responsibility for it:
“I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. 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.”
He continued to say that the platform would start taking a tougher stance on troublemakers: “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.”