New Twitter feature lets users limit replies to their tweets, will this make the platform safer?

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Twitter is rolling out a new feature that lets users limit the replies to their tweets. The feature was previously in the test phase and only a small percentage of users were a part of it.

Now, users on Twitter will be able to select if they would want to allow replies from other users. As you compose a new Tweet, you can open replies to everyone, people you follow, or just people you @ mention. 

Tweets with the latter two settings will be labelled and the reply icon will be greyed 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.

We tested, you Tweeted, and now we’re rolling it out to everyone! pic.twitter.com/w6Q3Q6DiKz

— Twitter (@Twitter) August 11, 2020

The feature is now available to all Twitter users on Android, iOS and Web. 

Limiting replies will be useful for Twitter users from getting abusive or derogatory tweets from trolls, apart from irrelevant tweets. However, the feature also limits one of Twitter’s fundamental rules that allow other users to share their opinion on a topic of the tweet. 

Previously, Twitter rolled out the ‘Hide replies’ feature to give more controls to the tweet author to hide responses from the main conversation that are off-topic. The feature also allows Twitter users to take further action after hiding a reply like blocking the replier too.