Dick Costolo has declared war on online trolls in an apologetic statement sent internally to Twitter employees. The CEO of the social network said that he takes the responsibility for Twitter's inability to combat cyber bullies personally and vows to start "kicking them off right and left" so that nobody "hears their attacks".

The Twitter boss explained his stance in a reply to staff member Adrian Cole's concern about the platform's actions against sexist and racial harassment in the past.

Costolo's response was open and frank. "We suck at dealing with abuse and trolls on the platform and we've sucked at it for years," he admitted.

"It's no secret and the rest of the world talks about it every day. We lose core user after core user by not addressing simple trolling issues that they face every day.

"I'm frankly ashamed of how poorly we've dealt with this issue during my tenure as CEO. It's absurd. There's no excuse for it. I take full responsibility for not being more aggressive on this front. It's nobody else's fault but mine, and it's embarrassing."

His words are to lead to a serious crackdown on abuse by posters, no matter their stature. "Now we're going to fix it, and I'm going to take full responsibility for making sure that the people working night and day on this have the resources they need to address the issue, that there are clear lines of responsibility and accountability, and that we don't equivocate in our decisions and choices," he added.