Twitter on a Samsung Galaxy S9Source: Android Central

What you need to know

  • Twitter will let you limit who can interact with your tweets with a new feature test in a bid to promote healthy discussion on the platform.
  • You'll be able to prevent people who you don't follow from retweeting or replying to your tweet directly.
  • The changes will roll out later this year.

Twitter is making changes to its platform to make tweeting less anxiety fraught for users. As per Mashable, the firm wants to improve what it dubs as conversational health on the platform. Essentially, Twitter is adding a new set of options that will let you choose who can reply to your tweet before sending it.

Twitter calls this feature "conversation dynamics." With this, you'll be able to take control of how your tweet is disseminated across the platform, limiting it to one of four classes of users.

  • Global - The current setting, everyone who sees the tweet can reply.
  • Group - People who you follow, i.e people who you already want to listen to, as well as people you mention in the tweet can respond.
  • Panel - You'll be able to mention any user you'd like to respond, and only they will be able to reply to the tweet.
  • Nobody - Exactly what it says on the tin.

While everyone would still be able to quote tweet the account should it be public, this feature would keep the main reply thread under control. Twitter says it'll be testing it later this year in select markets.

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Twitter conversational dynamicsSource: Twitter

If this concept sounds familiar, it's because it's not a new idea. Consider Facebook, the platform lets you share updates on your Newsfeed to different audiences which such precision that a different person could visit your feed each day and see a different side of you. Instagram doesn't have as much granular control, but you can stop people from commenting on certain pictures.

In essence, you could say that conversational health on social media is a solved problem. Twitter just needs to implement it.

Twitter: Everything you need to know