How to Shield Yourself From Social Media Abuse, Consumer Reports – “If you’ve spent any amount of time on social media sites, you know these platforms sometimes bring out the worst of human nature in the form of vitriolic comments, hate speech, verbal harassment, and even threats of violence. Making matters worse, many social media companies have been rolling back some of their anti-abuse mechanisms and policies. In this article:
Of course, users can manually block or mute abusive accounts at platforms such as Facebook and X. But they typically have to encounter the abuse—often repeatedly—before taking those steps. In recent years, technologies have been developed that let users automatically detect and quarantine potentially abusive content so they can choose whether and when to review and address it—much as email companies already do with spam. Many of these tools, however, are available only to a subset of social media users, as detailed in a new report by Consumer Reports and the free expression organization PEN America, which calls on digital platforms to do more to protect their users from online abuse.” [h/t Pete Weiss]
