Twitter has made some changes to its rules on hateful conduct to clamp down on Tweets that might dehumanize others based on age, disability or disease.

This update to the company's policies follows an announcement to the rules last year when Twitter ruled that language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion would break the rules and be removed. 

Now, the hateful conduct policy has expanded to cover similar content on the basis of on age, disability or disease.

Generally speaking, the policy is designed to stop people from actively promoting violence against others based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, religion and more. Now that policy has been enhanced to be further reaching. 

The policy change also applies retrospectively. This means that Tweets sent before the change can be reported and will need to be deleted. Accounts that have previously Tweeted in this way won't necessarily be suspended though as they weren't breaking the rules at the time. 

It's worth noting that Twitter has also said it plans on expanding the policy further in future and like other social media platforms it is constantly striving to battle hate speech.