Twitter is now letting all of its users on iOS, Android and the web to choose who can reply to their tweets and take part in a conversation.
The social media giant notes that people are sometimes more comfortable talking about what’s happening when they can choose who can reply.
Before you tweet, you can now choose who can reply with three new options. You can allow everyone to reply to the tweet or only allow people who you follow to reply. Lastly, you can only allow people you mention in the tweet to reply to it.
Tweets with the latter two settings will be labeled and the reply icon will be grayed out for people who can’t reply. It’s important to note that people who can’t reply will still be able to view, retweet, retweet with comment, share and like these tweets.
Twitter outlines that since it began testing this feature in May with a select number of users, it’s seen people use these settings to have conversations that weren’t possible before.
“These settings help some people feel safer and could lead to more meaningful conversations, while still allowing people to see different points of view,” Twitter outlined in a statement.
The social media giant outlines that these settings help people be more comfortable and protected from spam and abuse. It notes that users have found these settings as a new method to block out noise, since 60 percent of people who used this during the test didn’t use ‘Mute’ or ‘Block.’
Twitter says that with these settings, problematic repliers aren’t finding another way to spread abuse. These settings prevented an average of three potentially abuse replies, while only adding one potential abuse retweet with comment.
It’s also interesting to note that the feature can be used for some light fun, as several Canadian Twitter accounts have depicted.
Interesting new Twitter feature lets you limit who can reply to your tweets.
We always want our community to be part of the convo but may use it to share indisputable facts — like how @Canucks are winning the Cup this year! Reply if you disagree, RT if you agree! #GoCanucksGo
— Vancouver International Airport (YVR) (@yvrairport) August 11, 2020
Reply if you won a series against us
— x-Raptors Uprising GC (@RaptorsGC) August 11, 2020
The new feature is now available to users around the world.
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