Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Twitter’s secretive “Project Guardian” aims to shield controversial characters and users with large followings from an onslaught of trolls and haters, according to a report by Bloomberg. The platform reportedly maintains a list of thousands of users that Twitter deems high risk for harassment, which includes musicians, professional athletes, journalists, and other users who are particularly prominent — even if just for the moment.
Bloomberg notes that when Twitter receives a report of an abusive post related to an account on the list, Twitter’s content moderation team will respond to that report faster than all the other ones it has lined up. The thinking behind the program is that Twitter can prevent harmful content from spreading, as…
