Twitter just updated its policy on revenge porn and non-consensual nudity 'to better protect victims'

Twitter is ready to start taking revenge porn much more seriously.

The company officially introduced a new policy today detailing how it plans to handle revenge porn and other types of non-consensual nudity shared on its platform. The updated rules, which include stricter penalties for violators, are meant to "better protect victims," according to the company.

The new policy states that Twitter is broadening what it considers non-consensual nudity to include more types of content. The company's co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey recently held several meetings with employees to discuss the new policy. Now, it covers not just revenge porn, but "hidden camera content," and other images and video "not intended for public distribution."

"To help prevent our teams from making a mistake and removing consensual intimate media, we may require a report from the actual subject or their authorized representative prior to taking any enforcement action. We will reply back to those reports via email and request that the subject provide documentation to verify their identity. "

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The company notes that, "it may require" a report from the subject of the image before it can take action on an account that posted the images.

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That said, Twitter claims it's also imposing stricter penalties on accounts that violate the rules by handing out suspensions when it identifies accounts that are posting non-consensual nudity. "We will suspend any account we identify as the original poster of intimate media that has been produced or distributed without the subject’s consent. We will also suspend any account dedicated to posting this type of content."

However, there are some circumstances when sharing this type of content could result in a temporary suspension, rather than an outright ban or suspension. From Twitter's policy:

If someone is not the original poster of this content, it is not clear that the content was produced or distributed without consent, and/or a person has an otherwise clean violation history, we may not suspend the account immediately. Instead, we will require the user to remove the violating Tweet(s) and temporarily lock them out of their account before they can Tweet again. We will immediately and permanently suspend them upon any further violations of this policy.

The updates come in the wake of the #WomenBoycottTwitter movement, a campaign where users called out Twitter for uneven enforcement of policies that often hurt women, especially women of color, more than the trolls and abusers Twitter has vowed to crack down on.