Twitter announced an upcoming feature being tested that would let individuals control who replies to their tweets, according Mashable’s Karissa Bell, who was in attendance at Twitter’s presentation.
Twitter has been struggling for years to combat online trolls, harassment and misinformation. The platform has been described as “toxic” and individuals and companies alike have often been victim of “its rush-to-judgment culture.”
Twitter’s proposed new feature may go a long way toward changing that. According to Bell, the “upcoming feature will let you control who can reply to your tweet as you compose it, there will be the ability to limit replies to followers, people who are mentioned in the tweet, or no replies at all.”
This will help prevent threads from being hijacked by trolls and devolving into the very kind of argument Twitter has become known for. As Mashable highlights, “for Twitter users who often become targets of abuse and harassment, the ability to limit replies could have a dramatic impact on their experience as it could prevent their conversations from getting spammed with unwanted replies. And many Twitter users were quick to praise the experiment as a welcome change.”
The feature is still in testing and available to a limited number of users, but here’s to hoping it rolls out to all Twitter users soon rather than later.
