Microblogging website Twitter has come under fire for failing to protect users after a freelance journalist was bombarded with rape threats over the weekend.
Caroline Criado-Perez was targeted after successfully campaigning to have the face of writer Jane Austen used on the new UK £10 note, after the Bank of England decided to replace philanthropist Elizabeth Fry with former prime minister Winston Churchill on the £5 note.
At one point Criado-Perez said she was receiving as many as "50 abusive tweets per hour for about 12 hours". As well as rape and death threats, some users posted what they believed to be Criado-Perez’ home address.
An online petition was quickly set up demanding Twitter make it easier to report abusive messages. At time of writing it had attracted over 57,000 signatures.
Twitter was criticised for its slow response and the decision by manager of journalism and news Mark S Luckie to lock his account, restricting users’ ability to contact him.
The current system requires users to fill out a form at support.twitter.com.
Head of Twitter UK Tony Wang took to the site to say the company was experimenting with introducing a ‘report tweet’ button similar to that on its mobile and iOS applications. Wang refused to comment on the case specifically but did tweet that the company would "suspend accounts that, once reported to us, are found to be in breach of our rules".
A 21-year-old man was arrested in Manchester yesterday in connection with the incident.
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