Twitter is developing a new conversation feature that will let users manage who can reply to their tweets.
At CES 2020, the social media giant revealed that a new “conversation participants” option will soon appear in the tweet compose screen.
Here, users will be able to choose one of the following four tweet settings for any of their tweets:
- Global — anyone can reply
- Group — only people you follow or mention can reply
- Panel — only people specifically mentioned in the tweet can reply
- Statement — no one can reply
Currently, Twitter users’ options are somewhat limited when it comes to preventing random people from joining their conversations, besides outright making a profile private.
For the most part, you can only mute specific people or all replies to a thread. However, this doesn’t stop people from replying. A ‘hide replies’ option was also introduced last summer, although this also doesn’t prevent responses. Moreover, users can still choose to view the hidden tweets.
While the new options will help users protect themselves from abuse, one CES attendee noted that the ability to limit replies could result in misinformation going unchallenged, according to The Verge. In response, Suzanne Xie, Twitter director of product management, pointed to quote tweeting as a means of circumventing this issue. However, Xie conceded that more work needs to be done on the feature, noting that it’s “something we’re going to be watching really closely as we experiment.”
Twitter says it will start testing the conversation participants feature sometime later this quarter. Data obtained during these tests will be incorporated into the final version of the feature, which is set to launch globally later this year.
During the CES panel, Twitter also announced a few other changes are coming to the service at some point, including a more streamlined conversation thread system and customization of the ‘Lists’ display.
Source: The Verge
