Twitter is temporarily decreasing the reach of tweets from users it believes are engaging in abusive behavior via a new protocol that began rolling out last week.



The protocol temporarily prevents tweets from users Twitter deems abusive from being displayed to people who don't follow them, effectively reducing their reach. If the punished user mentions someone who doesn't follow them, for instance, that person would not see the tweet in their notifications tab. And if the punished user's followers retweet them, those retweets wouldn't be shown to people who don't follow them.

Those impacted by the new protocol are already tweeting screenshots of Twitter's emails detailing their punishments. "We've detected some potentially abusive behavior from your account," the emails read. "So only your follower can see your activity on Twitter for the amount of time shown below."