Twitter has a obnoxious user problem

Twitters biggest problem isn’t the lack of users of their frequency of use. It’s simply a growing type of user.

The recent toxic atmosphere in the UK referendum campaign has brought things to a head. Politicians are right to be concerned about the negative impact social media is having on political discourse. The problem isn’t unique to the UK either and crops up in every geography where tweets are tweeted. Female politicians take the brunt of harassment with users threatening rape and murder. The worry now is that politicians will simply forgo office to avoid abusive tweets.

Twitter has given many ignored voters their voice but it has also unleashed hate on a monumental scale. Even businesses remain wary of using Twitter in case they need to console staff dealing with abusive customers. When I spoke to a major brand about using Twitter for customer service the response came ‘it’s just noise’.

The client believed it was better to engage over the phone. While more expensive, it was easier to handle abusive contacts and customers themselves were less likely to fly off the handle. Corporate clients especially, talk of customers whose language is beyond worrisome.

Twitter has a user problem and not the one many investors focus on. Twitter isn’t the next Facebook and many have now come to terms with that. However, it is still a very successful business with over 310,000,000 monthly active users. Twitter’s problem is that it’s incapable of preventing abusive behaviour or tackling trolls effectively.

Just open Twitter and it’s a deluge of fake profiles, robo tweets, paid for followers, racism and hate speech. It’s now getting to the stage that you need to devote real time and energy to unearth kindness in the midst of hate.

Twitter has already been given hints and tips on how to combat this. The great Andy Dawson or as he’s better known Profanity Swan talked of improved verification. Getting users to verify their identity would prevent them going rogue online. Twitter should also use profanity tools that can root out racism and abuse.

The challenge facing Twitter is obvious. It needs to fix the growth in online abuse to stabilise democratic debate, rid the world of extremism and make companies willing to invest in it.

I’m sure much is happening behind the scenes but as a user I’m not seeing the change. For investors the alarm bells should be ringing loudly. Either push for an abuse eradication strategy at Twitter or watch the platform eat itself.

In time there may be only a single user ranting and howling at the moon with anger.