Twitter is making its reply-limiting feature available to all users starting today, and it’s for real this time: You can finally say goodbye to the reply guys. The company’s director of product management, Suzanne Xie, writes in a blog post published Tuesday that the feature is part of the platform’s efforts to give people more control over their conversations on the platform.
“Sometimes people are more comfortable talking about what’s happening when they can choose who can reply,” Xie said in the post, adding that Twitter has seen people use the settings to have conversations that weren’t previously possible. “Starting today, everyone will be able to use these settings so unwanted replies don’t get in the way of meaningful conversations.”
The change is one of many experiments Twitter’s run in recent years in order to improve “conversational health,” on its platform. Though limits on replies has been controversial among some users, Twitter has said it’s meant to improve some of the less-than desirable dynamics on Twitter, such as ratios and, of course, the infamous reply guys.
Twitter has been experimenting with the feature since May, and says early tests have shown it can reduce abusive tweets.
“These settings prevented an average of three potentially abusive replies while only adding one potentially abusive retweet with comment,” Twitter’s Suzanne Xie writes in a blog post. “And, we didn’t see any uptick in unwanted direct messages.” She also notes that users who encounter reply-limited tweets are four times more likely to view retweets with comment, which can prompt further conversation about a topic.
Whether limiting replies to tweets actually improves conversation on Twitter remains to be seen, but the company says some users have used the settings to have more sensitive conversations about politics and social issues. “People are sharing more of their thoughts tweets using these settings about topics like Black Lives Matter and COVID-19 are on average longer than those that don’t use these settings,” the blog post states. And “differing views” can still be shared via the retweet with comment/quote tweet option.
