Twitter has made a habit of testing some of its features with a select group of people, and this week, they’re at it again. The micro-blogging platform wants to make sure that only select set of people are able to reply to your tweets. For this, it is a testing option where the user the highlight who can reply to their tweet. This can be divided based on the contacts who you follow. ” A new way to have a convo with exactly who you want. We’re starting with a small % globally so keep your eyes out to see it in action,” the platform tweeted on Wednesday.
Many users have pointed out that Twitter is trying to restrict freedom of speech by limiting the conversation to the selected group of people. The feature is rolling out to select Android and iOS users across the globe and one can expect it to release for everyone in the coming weeks.
We still don’t know the reason behind offering this feature, especially when social media is meant to connect individuals from all corners and help them become part of a conversation. Having said that, even if the person is not allowed to reply, they can still read the conversation, without actively being part of it.
This comes few weeks after Twitter decided that it wants to limit sharing of violent content on its platform and for this, it is testing a new feature which will allow users to self-edit if they are about to share tweets that carry harmful language.
This feature is currently available to a limited set of iOS users, who can revise the content of their tweet before making it public. “When things get heated, you may say things you don’t mean. To let you rethink a reply, we’re running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful,” Twitter mentioned.
This seems like Twitter’s way of saying that people can have a second look at what they’ve written, and change the words in order to make sure they don’t face consequences for violating Twitters’ policies, which could lead to suspension of account or strike on the account.