Twitter is testing a way to let you limit how many people can reply to your tweets. If you’re part of the test, when you compose a tweet, you’ll be able to select if you’ll allow replies from everyone, people you follow, or only people you @ mention. Twitter said in January that this feature would be coming to the platform sometime this year.
Here’s a video from Twitter showing how the feature works:
With the change, users can limit replies to everyone, followers only or only those mentioned in the tweet. If no one else is mentioned in the tweet, then nobody can reply. Regardless of a tweet’s permission settings, other users will still be able to like tweets in the conversation and quote tweet, but only those “invited” can reply.
Twitter has said the feature is meant to prevent harassment and improve conversations, but the feature could prove controversial with Twitter users, particularly if public figures begin limiting their replies.
