Twitter is testing a new feature that lets users decide who can reply to their tweets, the company announced on Wednesday, and some accounts are already using it in some interesting new ways.
Previously, anybody could reply to anybody on Twitter (as long as their profile wasn’t private or blocked). But now, if you’re part of the test, you can decide if you want to allow replies from everyone, only people you follow, or only people you tag — which, if you don’t tag anyone, means that no one can reply at all. Deciding who can reply to which tweet on a tweet-by-tweet basis could change how some people use the social media platform in significant ways.
Interviews on Twitter, for example, could be much more streamlined, and NBC’s Twitter account for Meet the Press has already shown an example of how.
Limiting how users can interact with live Twitter interviews does mean that emergent conversations won’t occur as easily in the replies — you can theoretically still quote tweet messages even if those tweets have replies limited, and conversations could be started that way. Still, the limitation means interviews may not feel quite as organic as they sometimes were before.
Limiting replies could also be used to help prevent the spread of spoilers for upcoming movies, TV shows, and video games.
There is the potential that limiting replies could be used more nefariously. If politicians or public officials post misinformation and don’t allow replies, people wouldn’t be able to easily fact-check a tweet in the replies that would appear under the original misinformation, where it could do the most help in correcting the record. And interestingly, the ACLU is arguing that public officials blocking replies would violate the First Amendment — President Donald Trump has yet to make use of the feature, but it will surely inspire debate if and when he does.
In the case of misinformation, if the original account isn’t allowing replies to a tweet, users can still use a quote tweet to comment. It’s not the most ideal solution — a quote tweet only appears on your feed, so a fact-check, for example, likely won’t be seen by everyone who saw the original tweet — but it’s still a way to weigh in if you aren’t able to directly reply.