New Twitter Privacy Tools Will Give Users More Control

Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s Chief Executive Officer, has previously stated that the social platform hasn’t moved quickly enough when it comes to launching new products in recent years.

The brand has been relatively vocal about product roadmaps, including discussing tools that are still in concept and may never reach the point where they are rolled out.

With both of these in mind, Twitter is looking at new privacy features relating to who can see a user’s posts and the posts they like, and more power over their follower lists.

The aim behind these tests is to help people feel more at ease when it comes to using the social platform.

Better ‘Social Privacy’ To Manage Online Identities And Reputations

Executives at Twitter are referring to the target of these tests as ‘social privacy’.

Internal research has highlighted that many Tweeters don’t fully understand privacy basics, and therefore are engaging less with the platform.

One step to remedy this is for Twitter to ask users to review their account privacy settings this month.

But that’s not the only thing the social giant has up its sleeve.

Here are four products that are either in concept or are soon to be tested:

1) More Control Over Follower Lists

This includes removing people who you don’t want following you.

Historically, the only way a user could manage their followers was through blocking or unblocking someone.

The ability to edit follower lists is a tool that will be tested this month (September).

2) Archiving Tweets

Twitter has been around for years, and whether users have used the platform from the start or signed up a little way down the road, there is bound to be at least one tweet they wish they didn’t publish.

Well, soon, users may have the option to hide these.

The posts will still be visible to the user, but no one else will be able to see them.

This option of how long a user has to wait before they can archive their tweets, be it 30, 60, or 90 days, or even an entire year, is currently under discussion.

This tool is still in the concept phase, so there’s no official test date yet.

3) Leaving Twitter Conversations

Twitter recently carried out a test on ‘down voting’ tweets within a conversation, and now it looks to be doing another test on the subject – leaving a public conversation entirely.

The social giant plans to test this before the end of 2021, so watch out for the option to see how it impacts your experience with the platform.

4) Hiding ’Liked’ Tweets

If you want to like a specific tweet, but don’t necessarily want all of your followers to know, for whatever reason, you’ll soon have power over that.

Users can select precisely who sees the tweets they like, whether it’s everybody, select groups, or just their followers.

Currently, there’s no timeline for this product to be tested or rolled out.

Can We Expect More Tools From Twitter?

Tool rollouts are, according to Jack Dorsey, now a ‘company wide goal’.

He has stated that he wants to double the amount of features ‘per employee’ that are direct drivers of either revenue or user growth.

Hopefully, that means we can expect to see more exciting tools and products in the near future.

Source: Bloomberg

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