Twitter usually shares some of the features and design revamps that they’re thinking of bringing to the platform even before they actually start working on it. It’s probably their way of seeing how people would react or engage with it probably before they go to the actual development stage. They’re sharing now some things that they might consider bringing to users to help them have more control over who sees their tweets and how people reply to them as well.
Tech Crunch shared what these new features might be. The first idea they’re mulling over is a Trusted Friends feature that lets you choose a small group of people to make a certain tweet visible to. You can probably add real-life friends or a smaller network of people that you would want to share more personal tweets to. This may boost Twitter usage as you have the option to have both public and private conversations but it can also affect Twitter engagement metrics.
The second feature that they might be working on is called Reply Language Prompts. This is a nudge to those replying to your tweets if they’re using words or phrases that you do not want to see, for example, profane language. It doesn’t necessarily prevent them from using them when replying but it can serve as a reminder to be more considerate. Twitter says nudges like this have an impact, like the suggestion to read articles first before tweeting. Of course, this will not have an effect on actual trolls but at least the reminder is there.
The last feature that they’re considering is something called Facets. Basically, under your account, you can have different personas like “Nancy at work”, “Mommy Nancy”, “Nancy’s romance books world” or whatever interest or life that you want to compartmentalize. This way, your followers can choose what kind of tweets they’ll follow on a certain account. They can choose to follow personal tweets and ignore work-related ones if they’re not interested. It’s an interesting way to compartmentalize tweets but may also prove to be more complicated.
Twitter clarifies that these proposed features are not being built yet but are just in the design mockup stage. They’re trying to get user feedback as early as now so they can decide whether or not to pursue these. So speak now or forever hold your peace if they eventually roll it out.
