Twitter upgrade aimed at weeding out cyber-bullying

Twitter has announced it will upgrade some of its features in order to better combat cyber-bullying.

The social media platform has said it will expand the "mute" option to allow users to block more tweets from their notifications.

Users are currently able to "mute" tweets from certain accounts, but the update will also enable them to block tweets based on keywords, phrases and the content of conversations.

Twitter has come under increasing criticism after many users complained they had become targets of abuse.

The platform has been struggling to strike a balance between free expression and blocking violent and hateful speech.

In July, it permanently banned some user accounts after Ghostbusters actor Leslie Jones left the site, saying she had faced severe harassment.

The company also said it had improved internal controls to deal more effectively with abusive conduct reported by users.

The planned update will be rolled out to all users in the coming days, according to a company blog post.