Twitter is now placing a timeout on the activity of abusive users

A number of users are tweeting that they’ve received notices from the company that their accounts are being “limited” in terms of reach, reports Heat Street. According to the official warning that user @Drybones5 received, the restrictions result in your activity being restricted from the wider Twitter community.

What this essentially means is that people outside the offender’s network of followers will not be able to see their tweets. Some of the users who have allegedly been placed under the limit, which lasts 12 hours, claim that the procedure does not take into account the context behind the language deemed abusive. It is unclear at this stage whether the company is using some form of automated keyword filter, which could be prone to mishaps. We have reached out to Twitter for a comment.

#PotentiallyAbusive is an excuse today @twitter is trying to limit my voice on their platform lets make sure they don't limit yours tomorrow pic.twitter.com/rcpVKmnlci

— Keith B. Still (@NaYaKnoMi) February 14, 2017

“Creating a safer environment for people to freely express themselves is critical to the Twitter community, so if behavior that may violate the Twitter Rules is detected, certain account features become limited” writes the company in its warning.

Last week, Twitter rolled out two new anti-abuse updates powered by machine learning algorithms. They included a safe search tool and collapsed replies in conversations. At the time, Twitter also stated that it would no longer tolerate permanently suspended users from creating new accounts.

However, not all of the company’s updates have been embraced by its community. On Monday, the platform was forced to ditch a new feature that put an end to notifications relating to lists following a backlash from users who deemed it irrelevant and problematic.