Twitter has been exploring ways to encourage more open public discussion while banning political ads on the platform to prevent candidates from swaying the user’s decision – as was seen in Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal. The platform has also undergone a myriad of changes, with a redesign and new features introduced earlier this year.
Well, the micro-blogging platform is planning more improvements to the experience and Dantley Davis, Twitter’s VP of design and research, on Tuesday listed out numerous new features, which “he’s looking forward to in 2020.” And well, if you take a close look, you will see that Davis has listed some important changes to how Twitter works.
Features that I’m looking forward to in 2020.
– Remove me from this conversation
– Don’t allow RT of this tweet
– Don’t allow people to @mention me without my permission
– Remove this @mention from this conversation
– Tweet this only to: hashtag, interest, or these friends— Dantley Davis (@dantley) November 5, 2019
A couple of these features are much-required on Twitter, including the ability to remove your personal self from a discussion and prevent others from mentioning you in random posts. We have all been victims of spam on Twitter. There’s been times I was randomly tagged in giveaway posts or photos I wouldn’t want to see in my feed. Thus, these two could be really useful features, but the latter tweaks the basic functioning of the service.
Twitter is all about public discussion. So, if you do not allow users to tag you in an open conversation, what’s even the point of this platform? It’s a valid question. I know Twitter isn’t working on this feature right away, but if it does, maybe it will look something like Facebook’s Activity Log. People will be able to mention you in posts, but you will have to approve the same before it appears on your timeline.
Don’t take the features listed above at their face value as it’s entirely possible that they may never see the light of day. In a follow-up tweet, Davis thanked his followers for the feedback and further added, “Our goal is continue to improve the public conversation on Twitter and getting feedback from the community on our ideas is helpful as we prioritize our work.”
One of the major changes, if it ever comes to Twitter, will be the “ability to not allow retweets” for a certain tweet. It is another feature that many users might want to see implemented soon as not everyone wants to make their profile private. Some users will surely want to have a public profile, but not allow retweets on some tweets, they think shouldn’t be spread around.
Other ideas that users suggested include the ability to mute like tweets in the feed and demarcate threads right off the bat. This means you won’t need to add numbers or the word thread to your tweets, saving you some words and allowing others to know that a lengthy thread is what they might be getting themselves into.
What are your thoughts on the aforementioned ideas? Which idea would you want to be implemented on Twitter first? Comment down below.
