Amnesty International Wants to Solve Twitter's Big Problem

There's been a lot of attention on Facebook this week, but another social media platform could use some work too.Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey has previously put out a call for solutions to some of the problems the site faces, and Amnesty international has answered, reports CNET.

The human rights advocacy group released a report on Tuesday entitled "Toxic Twitter." The report details the problems of violent, abusive language on the site that specifically targets women, and offers recommendations for how Twitter might try to curb it.

"As a company, Twitter is failing in its responsibility to respect women’s rights online by inadequately investigating and responding to reports of violence and abuse in a transparent manner," the report says.

Twitter previously announced policies to help crack down on the level of hate speech starting in 2016. These measures included suspending accounts at increased rates. The social platform also introduced rules in February to fight against automated accounts that flood the network, often with vitriolic content.

Twitter could be doing more, though, argues Amnesty International. The platform should start by collecting meaningful data on how they handle abusive content, and that data should be easily accessible to the public, the report recommends. Improving reporting mechanisms should also be a priority along with improving security and privacy features on the site. The report also calls for governments, including the U.S. government, to pass laws against hate speech online.

In response to the report, Twitter said it agreed with some of the recommendations, but also released a statement Wednesday. "The assertion that Twitter is consciously unengaged with human rights issues is an unfair representation not just of the facts, but of the ethos of our dedicated teams, and the core mission of the company," said Vijaya Gadde, head of legal, policy and trust at Twitter.