If you’re looking for ways to encourage better conversations, allowing people to silence those with whom they disagree is not an auspicious start.
But, considering Twitter’s dubious history with free speech, it’s not surprising that that’s exactly what the social media platform wants to do.
Twitter’s director of product management, Suzanne Xie, announced at a trade show on Wednesday that the company will soon allow users to choose who can reply to their tweets. Before you click “tweet,” you’ll be able to limit who comments on your tweet according to four categories.
“Global” means anyone can respond. “Group” includes people you follow and mention. “Panel” includes those you mention in the tweet. And “statement” means, as the name implies, that no one will be able to respond at all. We all get to be our own public relations managers, apparently.
Twitter will soon let you restrict who can reply to your tweets
Options:
? Global – Anybody can reply
?? Group -Only people you follow + mention can reply
??? Panel – Only people you mention in the tweet can reply
? Statement – Nobody can replyhttps://t.co/Ef6p2yG7Va— Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) January 8, 2020
Xie explained Twitter’s rationale this way: “Getting ratio’d, getting dunked on, the dynamics that happen that we think aren’t as healthy are definitely part of … our thinking about this.”
It may not be fun to have your tweet get “ratio’d” — what happens when it has more (presumably negative) replies than likes — but the ratio is usually well-deserved. Twitter is meant, ostensibly, to encourage conversations between diverse users. Why would it now let them shrink into their ideological bubbles?
Xie offered the quote tweet option for those disappointed that they can’t comment on a particular tweet. But that will just further encourage users to dunk on content they dislike, sharing it only with their followers to signal their superiority.
Since Twitter has 126 million daily users, including world leaders who use it by the hour, these changes could have a significant effect on how conversations and news stories build and circulate. Meghan Murphy, a writer who was banned from Twitter because of its arbitrary rules, calls the social media platform “our modern public square.”
At the moment, if you dislike comments on your tweets, you still have the opportunity to mute notifications from those who don’t follow you, hide replies, or block any jerk on your timeline. But Twitter is already something of a hellscape, and any ill-intentioned argumentation will occur whether or not Twitter allows users to hide comments.
This limitation of replies is a step in the absolute wrong direction. That will likely become apparent as soon as the feature appears and people start preaching even more loudly to their own choirs.
