Why is it so hard for twitter to implement some optional filter for this stuff?
You have a complete history of a users tweets and a record of how long the person has been active, number of followers, textual analysis of the tweets, block/mute status with respect to other people, whether you follow ect. It seems like it should be really easy for twitter to put messages into a spam/harassment folder, never to be seen by the target.
Edit: Not only would this alter a core and fundamental aspect of how Twitter currently operates but it would certainly be non-trivial to implement in an unobtrusive manner.
Who wants what blocked? Is there a generic 'spam/abuse' filter? Is it on by default? Are those tweets put into a spam/abuse section or entirely unviewable. What happens when someone sends a tweet that is blocked by the filter, are they notified?
Try to clearly define what metrics/identifiers you would use to determine a tweet is offensive and should be blocked and then call this implementation trivial.
Federated twitter blocking where people can choose to outsource the blocking to people they trust would be pretty cool. Kind of like AdBlockPlus lists.
You have a complete history of a users tweets and a record of how long the person has been active, number of followers, textual analysis of the tweets, block/mute status with respect to other people, whether you follow ect. It seems like it should be really easy for twitter to put messages into a spam/harassment folder, never to be seen by the target.