The intent behind wanting to get Twitter to pick up their game is an honourable one, but I really don’t think a petition would have any effect. It’s not just a few actors here and there that get abusive tweets, bullying is all over the place on social media. The people who run Twitter are aware of this, and they already have measures in place to deal with these types of situations.
Regarding the specific accounts that have sent hate to people involved in OUAT, I’ve reported several of them for spam at various times. I’m guessing that if a certain account gets a large amount of reports, that grabs the attention of the powers that be and they make it a priority to deal with them. I don’t know if anyone directly reported those particular accounts though, and perhaps if they had, they might have been dealt with more quickly.
This is what the Twitter FAQ says about reporting…
Abusive behavior and violent threats
When reporting abusive behavior on Twitter, please provide the following:
Description of problem, including length of time the abusive behavior has been happening
Tweet URLs (to find the exact link of a Tweet, please review this article)
Tweet text (copy and paste the text of the Tweet into the form)
Your email addressPlease note: If you believe you may be in danger, please contact your local law enforcement authority in addition to reporting the content to Twitter so that the situation can also be addressed offline.
To report abusive behavior on Twitter, click here.
For more information about Twitter’s abusive behavior policy, click here.
For more information about reporting abusive behavior on Twitter, click here.
It also says…
Offensive content
Users are allowed to post content, including potentially inflammatory content, provided they do not violate the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service. Twitter does not screen content and does not remove potentially offensive content unless such content is in violation of the Twitter Rules and Terms of Service.
The Rules define Targeted Abuse as…
Targeted Abuse: You may not engage in targeted abuse or harassment. Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be targeted abuse or harassment are:
if you are sending messages to a user from multiple accounts;
if the sole purpose of your account is to send abusive messages to others;
if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats
So it’s not like they’re not aware that abuse happens, and they do have protocols already in place for dealing with that sort of stuff. All we can really do is report abuse if we see it, and then it’s in their hands to deal with it as they see fit, according to their Rules and Terms of Service. Trying to get them to change how they operate via a petition likely wouldn’t have much of an effect, because I’m sure they already have a whole department dedicated to these things, and they deal with issues at the rate they’re able to. And even if things were changed, the type of people who tweet abuse, are still gonna tweet abuse, and no amount of rules will be able to stamp it out.