Twitter Considers Letting Users Tweet to 'Trusted Friends'

[MacRumors]

Twitter is considering letting users post select tweets for "Trusted Friends" only. That's the name of a feature the social media platform is testing that would allow users to limit the audience for specific content to a smaller circle of people.

Based on design concepts shared by the company (via TechCrunch), Trusted Friends could be a toggle that lets you indicate whether a tweet should be made public or be shown to just a handful of users. The idea is similar to Instagram's "Close Friends" feature, which lets users share personal Stories more privately.

Bringing the option to Twitter would allow users who have multiple Twitter accounts separating their personal and professional lives to tweet from a single account and have greater control of who sees what on their timeline. It could also mean some users no longer have to toggle between public and protected tweets.

Twitter recently announced new ways for creators and influencers to deliver content to specific users who pay to access its "Super Follow" feature, and Trusted Friends feels like an experimental extension of the idea that would be available to all users. But it's just a concept for now, and there's no guarantee Twitter will ever take it live.

Other concepts Twitter says it is looking into include "Facets," which would give other users the ability to choose whether they wanted to follow all a user's tweets, or only those about the "facet" they're interested in, and an ability for users to list specific phrases that they don't want to see in replies.

As with Trusted Friends, neither of these features are currently in active development and Twitter is simply seeking feedback to gauge whether they're worth pursuing or not.

Article Link: Twitter Considers Letting Users Tweet to 'Trusted Friends'

 

[ian87w]

Echo chamber 2.0.

 

[Onexy]

Echo chamber 2.0.

Yeah, friends are stupid.

 

[devoutappler]

Smart move by Twitter, now people can use that instead of OnlyFans!

 

[lsutigerfan1976]

Isn’t this basically like group text or something? I’m actually older. And that sort of reminds me of MySpace top friends. Where you only shared certain stuff with them.

 

[Premium1]

Ah yes so the echo chamber will continue to resonate. If you only want to tweet to “friends” do it through text messages.

 

[dukeblue219]

Ah yes so the echo chamber will continue to resonate. If you only want to tweet to “friends” do it through text messages.

Or use Facebook.

 

[arch1t3cton]

Twitter is toxic

 

[happydude]

Just more copy cat from the social platforms. Eventually they’ll all just merge into one and jack and zuckerberg whoever owns tik tok can assimilate into the borg and destroy us all.

 

[Cleartz]

Seems like a good idea in theory but considering it's Twitter...

 

[The Clark]

92% of tweets come from 10% of users.

Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-... tweets come,times, according to Pew Research.

Literal, echo, chamber.

 

[incoherent_1]

Privately sending a text-based message to a group of friends. If only some other platform had thought of this sooner….

(Click “Post reply,” close Safari, then open iMessage, Telegram, Signal, etc.)

 

[nandre]

Google Plus, is that you?

 

[sw1tcher]

92% of tweets come from 10% of users.

Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics/#:~:text=92% of U.S. tweets come,times, according to Pew Research.

Literal, echo, chamber.

That's not what it says.

It says that 92% of U.S. tweets come from 10% of U.S. Twitter users and it was during a specific time period only. When you leave out the U.S. part, you're implying it's true for the entire world when it's not. And there are way more international Twitter users than U.S. users

According to Twitter's most recent investor letter, the average number of U.S. daily active user was 38 million compared to 162 million outside the U.S.


Also, the data is based on the Pew Research Center's analysis of 3,518 U.S. adults with public Twitter accounts and from tweets collected via Twitter API between Nov. 11, 2019 and Sep. 14, 2020.

Guess what was happening in the U.S. for a majority of that time (and likely is what a majority of tweets were about)? Covid-19 outbreak and U.S. presidential election.

What were the numbers during 2018 or 2019? What was the average for the past 5 years? How do they compare? They don't provide that. Why? Why not? Why did Pew pick that specific time period to analyze?

 

[SigEp265]

Now this I can get behind!

 

[jca24]

nobody cares, twitter is scum, the toilet of social media!

 

[reyesmac]

The whole point of Twitter is just to know what people are thinking in real time. I can see this evolving into a shell of what it was when it started, they don't need your message broadcast to the world, they just need your thoughts collected and analyzed on the back end.

 

[Purneau]

I would expect Twitter to stop the creation of bubbles, not encourage it. I really think this will widen the gap between opponent groups.

But who listens to other opinions anyway…

 

[sw1tcher]

But who listens to other opinions anyway…

I'll take facts over opinions

 

[walterhpdx]

What they NEED to build out is a mutuals feed. I've noticed Twitter's algorithms keep presenting me more stuff about topics and people I follow (but don't follow me) at the expense of tweets from mutuals. Sure, I could create a list, but that's 900+ mutuals to manage, and no. Just no.

 

[Flight Plan]

Echo chamber 2.0.

I'm afraid you don't know what the term means. Twitter in its current state is the Echo Chamber.

Just because I want to limit the toxicity of the platform by inviting only my friends, THAT is not an "echo chamber". For that to be so, then I would have to invite only people who I think/know agree with me on everything.

And I don't do that in real life! My friends are my friends. We don't all agree on ANYTHING. But the point is, they are not toxic; unlike 98% of Twitter. That's a big reason why I count them as friends. We like each other and we get along with each other even when we disagree.

I like hamburgers. You like hot dogs. She over there is vegan. We can all get along as long as we're not toxic to each other. If one of us "goals toxic", then the others remove us from trusted. Problem solved!

Yeah, friends are stupid.

Lol, I take your response as facetious. Well played!

Ah yes so the echo chamber will continue to resonate. If you only want to tweet to “friends” do it through text messages.

Text is an option, but why NOT add features to Twitter? Why is that such a bad idea?

Just more copy cat from the social platforms. Eventually they’ll all just merge into one and jack and zuckerberg whoever owns tik tok can assimilate into the borg and destroy us all.

You weren't paying attention to Star Trek: The Next Generation. The Borg never wanted to "destroy us all". They wanted to assimilate all of us, not just our business leaders. 😏

That's not what it says.

It says that 92% of U.S. tweets come from 10% of U.S. Twitter users and it was during a specific time period only. When you leave out the U.S. part, you're implying it's true for the entire world when it's not. And there are way more international Twitter users than U.S. users

According to Twitter's most recent investor letter, the average number of U.S. daily active user was 38 million compared to 162 million outside the U.S.


Also, the data is based on the Pew Research Center's analysis of 3,518 U.S. adults with public Twitter accounts and from tweets collected via Twitter API between Nov. 11, 2019 and Sep. 14, 2020.

Guess what was happening in the U.S. for a majority of that time (and likely is what a majority of tweets were about)? Covid-19 outbreak and U.S. presidential election.

What were the numbers during 2018 or 2019? What was the average for the past 5 years? How do they compare? They don't provide that. Why? Why not? Why did Pew pick that specific time period to analyze?

Sometimes actual numbers are needed in order for us to understand the current state of something. Points well made, and I think what you've outlined is EXACTLY why "trusted friends" could work very well.

I don't do Twitter, because I don't want toxicity coming from strangers or bots. I'm not going to spend my life's energy responding to people or things who haven't somehow earned my respect or friendship.

The whole point of Twitter is just to know what people are thinking in real time. I can see this evolving into a shell of what it was when it started, they don't need your message broadcast to the world, they just need your thoughts collected and analyzed on the back end.

Twitter is already only 5 actual humans and 200 million bots. So by your description, it's ALREADY A SHELL; just a shell of what it could have been, not a shell of what it was when it started.

What they NEED to build out is a mutuals feed. I've noticed Twitter's algorithms keep presenting me more stuff about topics and people I follow (but don't follow me) at the expense of tweets from mutuals. Sure, I could create a list, but that's 900+ mutuals to manage, and no. Just no.

Oooh, I kind of like this idea!

 

[and 1989 others]

Yeah, friends are stupid.

'friends' on twitter are the real life equivalent of the people you once shared an adjacent sun bed with for one morning, on your beach trip to Santorini, 7 years ago, called Brian and Diane. Swapped numbers and never contacted each other ever again.

 

[morphineseason]

I'm okay with this. I mostly use twitter to follow a lot of public figures/companies to stay caught up on my interests and things going on, but it makes it hard to see and engage with people I'm close to. This might also help make Twitter a reasonable Facebook replacement for some people.

 

[Tech198]

"shh. be verwy, verwy quiet.. I'm tweeting huhuhuu"

 

[Apple_Robert]

It is rather amazing, how so many have become so addicted to social media and broadcasting their every move to the social media masses, that this possible move by Twitter is seen as a positive move.