14 DAY TRIAL // Twitter just added a new feature to its service, and that's the ability to export block lists and then share them with other users.
The social network is slowly starting to address the main area of criticism it's being put under for the last years, and that's online harassment.
After last December the company added a dedicated page in its settings panel just for managing blocked accounts, and after last April it also changed its service policy, Twitter made another change today, which will slowly start rolling out to all users.
From now on, each Twitter user can go to his settings panel, under his "Blocked accounts" section, and by clicking the "Advanced options" link in the top right corner, will have the ability to either export or import a list of Twitter accounts that are either already blocked or he wishes to ban for his account.
This feature can be of great use for Twitter accounts with a large number of followers, or which deal with controversial topics.
Twitter's lingering problem is starting to be addressed
There are a large number of research studies that pointed the finger at Twitter in the past as being a safe-haven for trolls and online abuse, a problem loophole in its service which is slowly starting to identify with the social network itself.
No doubt Twitter, after tripling the staff that handles user abuse in February and through its latest service updates, is beginning to address these issues, also identified by other developers and entrepreneurs long before.
Ahead of Twitter's announcement, several applications relying on the Twitter API to help users in managing bulk, shared blocks lists existed, like Shields Up, BlockTogether, Good Game Auto Blocker, and a few other more.
The status of these apps is unclear now, some of them becoming obsolete while others now looking for a way to integrate or enhance Twitter's latest feature addition.
Twitter just turned blocking trolls into a crowdsourced effort https://t.co/gKh8gBdV0f
— Alex Fitzpatrick (@AlexJamesFitz) June 10, 2015
