@michellemalkin what is a quality filter? — Steve Ladurantaye (@sladurantaye) April 17, 2015

Glad you asked. TechCrunch notes that the quality filter, currently being rolled out to verified iOS Twitter users, “is basically an extension of another feature for verified users called tailored filtering, which let them select an edited version of their notifications timeline based on factors like which other users they had the most interactions with.”

Twitter chief executive Dick Costolo wrote in a leaked memo to staff that “We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we’ve sucked at it for years,” noting with concern a number of celebrities who’ve threatened to leave the service.

@TwitchyTeam @DLoesch @ChrisLoesch Check out newish twitter filter stuff, lots of people hit many talking see @GOPMommy for examples. — New Filter Sucks (@evil_bun_bun) April 16, 2015

User @GOPMommy, for instance, found her tweet to Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards blocked, with the message, “This request looks like it might be automated. To protect our users from spam and other malicious activity, we can’t complete this action right now. Please try again later.”

Tweeting about PPACT protecting abusers is "malicious"—Why am I censored? I can't even tweet with @/support pic.twitter.com/kqU52C3G6T — Jezebel Jalen (@GOPMommy) April 16, 2015

The PPACT tweet was an hour after it first started happening. All of us were tweeting the EverydaySexism tag @DefendWallSt @ChrisLoesch — Jezebel Jalen (@GOPMommy) April 17, 2015

@ChrisLoesch @TwitchyTeam @DLoesch @GOPMommy it seems to be hitting conservs mainly (I've seen NO reports of libs getting hit yet). — New Filter Sucks (@evil_bun_bun) April 16, 2015

@DefendWallSt @ChrisLoesch To clarify-seemsTwitter's anti-abuse algorithms=flagging terms/words critical of leftists. Many of us flagged. — Jezebel Jalen (@GOPMommy) April 17, 2015

Whatever the reason, we’re not at all happy to see the return of “emergency” backup accounts, such as @JoshSmithInJail.

My main account (@thisisjoshsmith) now has even less functionality. I can only retweet things. Forward to @michellemalkin, pls. Thx. — Josh Smith (Gulag) (@JoshSmithInJail) April 17, 2015

The problem with twitter’s new guidelines is that it targets people who are blocked by a lot of people…namely anyone on a block list. — Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) April 17, 2015

So essentially, anyone can form a group or create a a bunch of accounts and block that person till Twitter takes action. — Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) April 17, 2015

What Twitter did, whether purposefully or not, is screw anyone finding themselves on the wrong side of people who don’t tolerate debate. — Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) April 17, 2015

Already have kind of. RT @McDermie: .@TheBrandonMorse Political groups could game this system very effectively. — Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) April 17, 2015

.@TheBrandonMorse Yes, but still small scale. Will be interesting to see Twitter's attitude during election campaigning if this tactic used. — Gerard McDermott (@McDermie) April 17, 2015

TechCrunch reports that the “feature” was discovered by tech blogger Anil Dash.

Well, that's an interesting & welcome addition, Twitter! (Was prompted about this on opening the app.) pic.twitter.com/Ka2VDvqwNf — Anil Dash (@anildash) March 23, 2015

So, is there any chance of Twitter specifically defining terms like “quality,” “malicious,” and “offensive”?

@wfmccl @michellemalkin What's @twitter find offensive w/these filters? Are they defined? Are we all supposed to guess? What a clown show. — Rev Todd Scheve (@Todd_Scheve) April 17, 2015

@JoshSmithInJail @GOPMommy It's pretty evident we aren't supposed to know much about it. — Amy Curtis (@moderncomments) April 17, 2015

Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional tweets.