Last week, Twitter's feature that allows you to choose who can reply to your tweets became available on iOS and the web. Today, that capability is available on Android as well, expanding the feature to everyone.
Suzanne Xie, Director of Product Management at Twitter, announced today the feature's wider availability. In May, the micro-blogging site started testing letting users limit the people who can respond to their tweets. Xie noted that this capability is meant to provide users "more control over the conversations they start".
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You can set the limit to any of the three types of audiences. The default setting will make your tweet available for everyone to reply to. The other two options are people you follow and the people you mention. The option to set restrictions will show up when you click or tap on the compose button. Depending on your selection, the appropriate labels will appear for your tweet. In addition, the reply icon will be grayed out for users who can't reply to it, although they still can view, retweet, retweet with a comment, like, or share that tweet.
Studies conducted and feedback gathered by Twitter since testing the feature revealed that the ability to limit replies to tweets helps "some people feel safer and could lead to more meaningful conversations, while still allowing people to see different points of view". Moving forward, the firm is planning on an easier way of letting you find the entire discussion through retweets with comments in order to help you "see different perspectives".
It's also developing a new form of label that will let people more easily see tweets with these settings. And in the coming months, the service plans to allow you to invite more people to join the conversation and clear notifications if you’re invited to a conversation.
