Twitter rolls out limited reply features to tweets

Twitter has rolled out a feature that will let any of its users have more control over who can comment on their tweets.

Twitter, by design, has always been more of an open forum when compared to social media platforms with more prominent privacy features such as Facebook. Perhaps one of the most noticeable aspects of this open forum nature is the ability to reply to any tweet a person makes on the platform (unless that person is part the minority of users who hide their tweets from people they don’t follow.)

While that allows Twitter to have a somewhat less segregated and more open approach, the downside is that Twitter is a platform where trolls thrive, and online bullying is rife.

Unless a user wanted to hide (or as Twitter calls it, protect) their tweets from everyone except contacts they follow – a feature many users don’t want – a user had to accept that just about anyone could comment on their tweets. While blocking has always been an option, the ease that trolls and bullies can create new accounts would often mean blocking users would just be a fruitless exercise of “whack-a-mole”.

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With that in mind, Twitter has introduced a feature that will afford its user base far more control of who can comment on their tweets. The feature will provide three options for a user on any tweet they make, as per below.

The first option, which is the default option, is public. This means anyone can comment on a tweet. Essentially, no change.

The second option will limit comments to either people mentioned in the tweet and to people the user follows.

The third option will limit comments to anyone mentioned in a tweet, so not even a user’s followers can comment. If no one is mentioned in the tweet, only the user themselves can comment.

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Users who cannot comment on a tweet will still be able to see it, like it and retweet it, but the comment icon will be greyed out.

The feature is geared up at helping curb online bullying, trolling and to promote more meaningful conversations between communities.

All users should notice this latest feature being rolled out to their accounts already, whether they use the iOS or Android apps or use the desktop version of the site.