Twitter has been working on a lot of different changes for the social network as of late, and that continues with another potential tweak to how replies work.
Twitter on Wednesday announced that it is currently testing the ability for users to limit who can reply to their tweets. If this sounds familiar, it’s because Twitter unveiled this potential change way back in January of this year during the Consumer Electronics Show.
There will be a new “Conversation Participants” option that will pop up within the compose tweet window. Selecting this option will let Twitter users quickly choose various options for who will be allowed to reply to the tweet. Here are the new options:
- Everyone: this will let anyone on Twitter reply to your tweet. This is how Twitter works by default.
- People you follow: this will make it so that only people you follow can reply to a tweet.
- Only people you mention: only Twitter users specifically mentioned in the tweet will be able to reply.
Here’s how Twitter describes it:
Before you Tweet, you’ll be able to choose who can reply with three options: everyone (standard Twitter, and the default setting), only people you follow, or only people you mention. Tweets with the latter two settings will be labeled and the reply icon will be grayed out so that it’s clear for people if they can’t reply. People who can’t reply will still be able to view, Retweet, Retweet with Comment, and like these Tweets.
It’s worth noting that even though tweets might have limited reply possibilities, users in general will be able to still retweet, retweet with a comment, view the tweet, and like the tweet.
Twitter says the new feature is rolling out starting now to a select number of users across the globe. That’s for iOS users, Android users, and folks who use Twitter’s website. Twitter will try out the new feature for a bit of time and if it proves successful enough, the social network will apply the feature to all users at some point in the future.
What do you think of this change? Let us know in the comments below!