Twitter has announced that it is cracking down on hate speech, with the launch of a new update in a series of incremental changes rolled out by the company for curbing online harassment and improving the abuse reporting process.

In announcing the new steps being taken by Twitter to tackle hate speech on its platform, Del Harvey -- Twitter's head of safety -- said that the company is giving its users more control over their experience on Twitter.

Harvey further elaborated that Twitter users will gain the ability to mute words and phrases – or even entire conversations – if they do not want those words/phrases to show up in their notifications.

In addition, along with giving Twitter users the ability to block tweets which containing certain words/phrases from showing up in their notifications, Twitter has also announced that it is bringing about an improvement in the tools it offers for reporting offensive or harmful tweets.

Twitter also said that training is being provided to its support teams to better recognize harassment on the platform.

About Twitter’s latest updates to its policies and features, Harvey said that the company has efforts underway to preserve free speech while drawing a hard line at "behavior that is intended to silence others."