Twitter PWA gets Birdwatch support, rolls back retweet experience changes, and more

As it does on a regular basis, Twitter has documented the changes and improvements made to its Progressive Web App (PWA). This month, the firm is adding a bunch of new features such as support for the newly introduced Birdwatch feature, the addition of ads in image or video carousel formats, improvements to the hover label, additional information in message requests in DMs, and more.

Birdwatch is the micro-blogging site’s new effort in tackling misinformation through the way of a community-based approach. The feature allows for users to not only report tweets, but also add notes and context on posts with misleading information. It is currently being piloted in the U.S. and users can sign up for it here. Other changes making it to the PWA include the addition of hover labels in the side navigation, composer, and more areas, the rollback of the retweet button behavior – where hitting the button now provides the retweet or quote tweet options, and the ability to dismiss topics in the Suggested Topics module.

Here is the complete list of fixes being made this month:

Birdwatch: We’ve added Birdwatch, a pilot program in the US of a community-driven approach to addressing misleading information on Twitter. Learn more here.

Carousels: We’ve rolled out Image/Video Carousel ad formats for Promoted Tweets on Twitter.com.

DMs: We’ve added social context information to message requests in your inbox. This should give you a better idea of who has sent the DM, and whether they’re someone you might know.

Hover Labels: We’ve been working to improve and expand our hover labels! To start, we’ve added hover labels to the side navigation when it’s collapsed to help give you more context. We’ve also added them to the composer, media viewer sidebar, and the home timeline switch.

Pre-Roll Ad Redesign: We’ve made a number of updates to Pre-roll video ads on Twitter.com to improve ad attribution and the overall user experience.

Retweets: The Retweets button will once again display the Retweet and Quote Tweet menu instead of directly opening the Quote Tweet composer.

Topics: Topic pills in the Suggested Topics module now have an “X” button which allows you to indicate when you’re not interested in a Topic.

Verified Accounts: We’ve added an educational sheet for the verified badge, and a new flow for verified accounts to remediate issues and violations.

There are also a few updates to features already present. These include added context on sensitive media prompts in DMs, updates to the emoji picker’s recently used suggestion logic, and more context through external links on misinformation prompts when trying to retweet or like a tweet that has been flagged as misinformation.

Here is the complete list of updates:

DMs: The tombstone for sensitive media in DMs will now show more informative text in the button to display media, letting you know whether it’s a photo, video, or GIF.

Emoji Picker: The recently used section in the emoji picker will now update when closing the picker, instead of in realtime. This will make it easier to select emojis from the recently used section without them reordering while you’re making selections.

Misinformation Prompt: When you’ve selected Like or Retweet on an embedded Tweet that has been flagged as misinformation, you’re brought to the Web client and shown a confirmation prompt. This prompt now has a link for more information about the Tweet.

Topics: Increased the size of the Topic pills in the Suggested Topics carousel on mobile devices.

Topics: For recommended Topic Tweets, we’ve increased the size of the context header on the Tweet detail screen.

Lastly, there are a bunch of fixes being made to various areas of the PWA:

Accessibility: Improved focusing of entries which are lists for screen reader users.

Accessibility: Corrected some issues with navigating timelines using the “j” and “k” keys. More updates are in progress.

Accessibility: Improved labeling of the account switcher.

Carousels: Fixed issues with keyboard navigation when viewing carousel content fullscreen.

Composer: The composer will no longer show a flash of a loading spinner when loading the home timeline.

Conversation Controls: Education for conversation controls will no longer display “you can reply” prompts when viewed while logged out.

DMs: Fixed an issue where list items were missing borders in the Message requests inbox.

DMs: You should no longer see the sensitive media interstitial for messages you’ve sent.

DMs: The filter graphic media setting will now correctly show as enabled by default.

Education Prompts: We’ve made changes to prevent users from seeing educational prompts after they’ve already been shown.

Explore: Improved link readability on Explore header content.

Lists: Private Lists will now display a proper error message instead of a blank screen in cases where the List was not found.

Lists: Fixed an issue where navigating into Lists from a notification was showing an error.

Lists: Reordering your pinned lists will now properly save the updated ordering. Also resolved issues with deleting pinned lists.

Photo Editor: Improved spacing and presentation in the GIF editor.

Profile: Fixed visibility of the error message on the edit profile screen letting you know name is a required field.

Text: Fixed an issue where you were unable to highlight certain blocks of text.

Toasts: Muting an account through the reporting flow will now show the correct screen name in the toast that’s displayed.

Tweets: Fixed an issue where selecting Like on a Tweet with limited engagements would show a prompt on top of the information modal.

Tweets: Non-compliant Tweets without a tombstone will now correctly disable Tweet actions.

Tweets: While editing photos in a Tweet, zooming on iOS should no longer cause broken images.

Tweets: The “x” key will now correctly trigger the block action when focusing a specific Tweet.

As usual, these updates and changes roll out to the PWA on desktop and mobile devices in a staggered manner. While features like Birdwatch are limited to users in the U.S., other features should become available in the next few days for all users.