According to the latest news, Twitter is looking for input on two new potential features that could give users more control over tweet replies. According to Twitter designer Paula Barcante, the two new features, Filter and Limit would intelligently hide offensive or harmful replies and prevent repeated offenders from replying.
Twitter would detect whether or not you have received harmful replies and then prompt you to turn on Filter or Limit. Barcante wrote, “If you have Filter on, potentially harmful replies to your Tweet wouldn’t be shown to you or anyone else.” And with Limit enabled, accounts with a history of offensive or “repetitive, uninvited tweets” would not be able to reply anymore.
More or less, the concept is fairly upfront irrespective of whether you have Filter or Limit enabled or not. In the case of filtered tweets, replies appear with an added text saying “This reply is only visible to you.” And for accounts with Limit enabled, Twitter would show a warning “Reply limit is on” with a link to learn more.
It is to be noted that since the whole process is entirely hypothetical and no individual is verifying them, the automated process is bound to be inaccurate at certain times. Therefore, Barcante notes that Twitter is also considering letting users review the tweets that get caught in either feature.
Among the latest features tested by Twitter, Filter and Limit sound better than Fleets. Enabling these features in settings could largely prevent racist abuse in the platform. All these features sound great but we have to wait and see how it is being implemented. As of now, Barcante didn’t give a timeline for rolling out the features so we have no other option than to wait.
