Twitter improves features to report and prevent online abuse

The social media platform has unveiled some significant updates to its abuse policy. Once the changes have rolled out, anyone -- not just the victim -- can report abuse, defined by Twitter as "specific conduct that targets people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease."

Behavior that breaches these guidelines will also be easier to report.

Twitter users will also see an expanded "mute" feature, where they will be able to moderate notifications received for certain words, phrases, usernames, emojis or hashtags.