Twitter is keen on sharing updates on design and features ideas before they start development. That, according to its reports, is to gather feedback from users.The social media giant is now considering new features with a design focused on controlling who can see and respond to your tweets or how they can do it.
The potential implementation of these features may provide a much-needed response to the criticism the platform received for failing to protect users from negative behavior and hateful conduct.Some of the ideas Twitter has mentioned include the ability to tweet in new personas, untag yourself from tweets and tweet only to friends. To learn more about these features, keep reading.
1. Unmention Feature
Twitter is in the process of offering users the ability to unmention themselves from tweets as one of their privacy measures on the platform.That will make it easier to untag yourself from any conversations that don’t interest you.You just need to click the “unmention yourself” button from the more info menu, and Twitter will remove your profile link.
2. Trusted Friends Controls
Twitter might have borrowed this idea from Facebook, where posts can be public, or you can share them with only a few people, or what Instagram has with “close friends” on Instagram stories.
With the Trusted Friends feature, users would be able to choose who they want to tweet to. That would give users complete control over who sees what they share on the platform.While we are yet to see how it turns out, Twitter believes the feature will help users keep their professional and private lives apart.
Currently, users often use unofficial means to control who sees their tweets and switch between public to protected tweets. That should ultimately resolve the problem.
3. Reply Language Prompts
By letting you filter out words or phrases you don’t want to see in comments, this feature would help discourage users from using profane language in their replies.
But how does it work?
Let’s say you’re replying to a tweet and you tried to use words or phrases that violate the rules set by the person who started the conversation. Upon doing so, an automated prompt would show up and explain why the tweet owner disapproves of the language you have used.That would encourage people to use the correct language rather than stop them from posting a response.
If you still choose to use language the thread owner deems “bad,” the system will automatically move your comment to the bottom of the conversation.
4. New Personas (Facets)
This feature is about one account tweeting from different personas. If you want to tweet about various facets of your life, including personal life, career life, or pastime, all from one account, this feature might interest you.
While the Trusted Friends feature would only allow interacting with tweets from close personal networks, Facets would operate differently. It would give users the option to follow all your tweets or opt out of those they don’t want.
That allows you to follow someone’s tweets about their work-life and ignore their posts on their favorite celebrity. According to the company, this might attract and bring onboard users who often feel alienated with topics that don’t interest them.
Final Thoughts: July 2021 Updates to Possible Twitter Features
The introduction of the new features might be a significant disruption to Twitter’s engagement metrics.When it began, Twitter focused on having all tweets public by default, a public platform where users could share and interact openly.
Things have changed due to misuse of the platform. With the Reply Language Prompts, users could now think again before sharing posts in public. On a positive note, if users could hold protected conversations, it could attract some users who’ve always wanted to tweet in privacy.
Twitter, however, notes that for now, these features are still at a testing stage and is yet to decide if it will adopt any of them. We only need to wait and see since it will depend on the user’s feedback.
