Inevitability, it becomes an I-don’t-like-opinions-other-than-my-own button:
Unfortunately, some of the negative effects of a report abuse button that people have feared seem already to have happened. Shortly after the function became available on certain smartphone apps, accounts like @transphobes – which retweets the kinds of violent threats and hate trans women and men get online, to raise awareness of bigotry against them – was suspended.
Whether it was targeted by a concerted campaign of opponents or automatically suspended without being reviewed by Twitter is unclear. It certainly raises the question: how easy is it to mistake awareness-raising for bigotry? And what does it say when Twitter bans an account for retweeting things it otherwise is not acting to stop?
Via Twitter’s ‘report abuse button’ has already hurt some good guys @ The Telegraph.