Twitter test lets you ‘unmention’ yourself in tweets

Twitter might not have an edit button just yet, but it’s still delivering at least one useful feature this week. The social network is now rolling out a previously hinted-at “Unmention” feature that lets you remove yourself from a conversation. The experimental offering is limited to the web for now, but you just have to choose “leave this conversation” from a tweet’s options to avoid constant notifications for a chat you never wanted to join.

Unmentioning is available for some people today, Twitter says. It’s not clear if or when the feature might be widely available, or when it might reach mobile apps. In its current form, the text for the mention remains — it just doesn’t send an alert.

The company has tested or deployed numerous features to keep mentions civil, including an anti-harassment Safety Mode that automatically blocks mean-spirited users. This, however, might be one of the most practical. Twitter users often deal with unwanted mentions from friends, spammers and others. This gives you more control over your participation and lets you focus on the chats you care about.

Twitter appears to have quietly altered a key way deleted tweets can be preserved

Twitter might finally be delivering an edit button, but the company appears to have quietly altered a key way deleted tweets can be preserved. As writer Kevin Marks first pointed out, the company changed its embedded javascript so that the text of deleted tweets is no longer visible in embeds on outside websites.

Previously, the text of a deleted tweet was still visible on web pages on which it had been embedded, but now Twitter is using javascript to render the tweet as a blank white box. Overall, it might not seem like a major change on Twitter’s part, but it’s one that has significant implications. Tweets from public officials, celebrities and the general public are frequently embedded into news stories. Even if those tweets were later deleted, there was a clear record of what had been said.

Now, there are untold numbers of old articles where instead of a tweet there’s just a blank box without context. For example, tweets from former President Donald Trump were routinely cited by media organizations. Even after his account was permanently suspended, the text of those missives was still viewable on the sites where it had been embedded. Now, that’s no longer the case.

In Trump’s case, there are extensive archives of those tweets. But that’s not the case for the majority of Twitter users, or even many public officials. And while it’s still technically possible to view the text by disabling javascript in your browser, it’s not the kind of step most people would know how to do even if they knew the option existed.

Twitter product manager Eleanor Harding told Marks the change was made “to better respect when people have chosen to delete their Tweets.” A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment further on the change. 

Still, it’s a curious move because, as Marks points out in his post, Twitter’s original choice to maintain the text of deleted tweets was an intentional choice on the part of Twitter engineers. “If it’s deleted, or 1000 years in the future, the text remains,” former Twitter engineer Ben Ward wrote in 2011 when embedding tweets was first announced.

That’s in line with statements from other twitter executives over the years about the importance of Twitter as a kind of “public record.” For example, former CEO Jack Dorsey said in 2018 he was hesitant to build an edit button because it could erode Twitter’s ability to function as a public record. “It’s really critical that we preserve that,” he said at the time.

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Twitter confirms it will test an edit button

More than a decade and a half into its existence, Twitter has confirmed what was once unthinkable: an edit button is on the way. The company confirmed as much Tuesday, saying that it’s been “been working on an edit feature since last year.” 

The company was light on details, but it did share a mock-up of the feature, which it said it would test first with Twitter Blue subscribers “in the coming months.”

Twitter added that “no, we didn’t get the idea from a poll,” in an apparent reference to Elon Musk, who recently became the company’s largest shareholder and immediately asked his followers if the company should create the long-requested feature.

In a separate thread, the company’s head of consumer product Jay Sullivan said that an edit button “has been the most requested Twitter feature for many years.” He said the company would be “actively seeking input and adversarial thinking” prior to launching the feature in order to prevent potential misuse.

“Without things like time limits, controls, and transparency about what has been edited, Edit could be misused to alter the record of the public conversation,” Sullivan wrote. “Protecting the integrity of that public conversation is our top priority when we approach this work. Therefore, it will take time and we will be actively seeking input and adversarial thinking in advance of launching Edit.”

That Twitter will start experimenting with editable tweets is a major shift for the company. Executives have long acknowledged the practicality of being able to fix typos and correct errors, but have cited concerns that an edit button could chip away at Twitter’s ability to act as a public record. As recently as 2020, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey said it would “probably” never happen, despite previously seeming open to the idea. “We wanted to preserve that vibe, that feeling, in the early days,” he said, referring to Twitter’s origins as an SMS-based service.

Prior to Twitter confirming it was in fact working on an edit button, Meta CTO Andrew “Boz” Bosworth weighed in on the idea, claiming that Facebook had already “solved” issues around potential misuse. “You just include an indicator that it has been edited along with a change log,” he wrote. “If you are really worried about embeds they can point to a specific revision in that history but with a link to the latest edit. Not a real issue.” 

Bringing the edit button to Twitter Blue subscribers first could also be a major boost to Twitter’s recently-launched subscription service. The $2.99/month service gives subscribers additional features, like the ability to “undo” tweets and access to NFT profile photos. But that doesn’t mean edit functionality will always be limited to those who pay. Editing will be available first as a “Twitter Blue Labs” feature, but the company has said it intends to make some “labs” features available to everyone after initial testing. Whether that will be the case with tweet editing is unclear for now.

Twitter won’t let government-affiliated accounts tweet photos of POWs

Twitter is once again tightening its rules to address how its platform is handling the war in Ukraine. The company said Tuesday that it will no longer allow official government or government-affiliated accounts to tweet photos of prisoners of war “in the context of the war in Ukraine.”

The policy will apply to photos published “on or after April 5th,” according to an update in Twitter’s rules. Government accounts sharing such images will be required to delete them, said Yoel Roth, Twitter’s Head of Site Integrity. “Beginning today, we will require the removal of Tweets posted by government or state-affiliated media accounts which share media that depict prisoners of war in the context of the war in Ukraine,” Roth said.

“We’re doing so in line with international humanitarian law, and in consultation with international human rights groups. To protect essential reporting on the war, some exceptions apply under this guidance where there is a compelling public interest or newsworthy POW content.”

In a blog post, the company added that in cases in which there is a “compelling public interest” for a government account to share photos of prisoners of war, it would add interstitial warnings to the images.

While the new rules apply to official government and government-affiliated accounts, Twitter noted that it will take down POW photos shared by anyone with “with abusive intent, such as insults, calls for retaliation, mocking/taking pleasure in suffering of PoWs, or for any other behavior that violates the Twitter rules.”

Additionally, Twitter is taking new steps to limit the reach of Russian government accounts on its platform. Under a new policy, the company will no longer “amplify or recommend government accounts belonging to states that limit access to free information and are engaged in armed interstate conflict,” Roth said. “This measure drastically reduces the chance that people on Twitter see Tweets from these accounts unless they follow them.”

It’s not yet clear if or how Twitter plans to enforce this policy for contexts other than the war in Ukraine. In a blog post, the company left open the possibility that it would apply the rules to situations “beyond interstate armed conflict” but didn’t elaborate.

“Attempts by states to limit or block access to free information within their borders are uniquely harmful, and run counter to Twitter’s belief in healthy and open public conversation,” the company wrote. “We’re committed to treating conversations about global conflicts more equitably, and we’ll continue to evaluate whether this policy may be applied in other contexts, beyond interstate armed conflict.”

The changes are the latest way Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced Twitter to adapt its content moderation rules as tries to suppress Russia-backed disinformation. The company has already taken steps to limit the visibility of Russian state media outlets and turned off advertising and recommendations in both Russia and Ukraine. Russia has blocked Twitter since March 4th.

Elon Musk, Twitter’s largest shareholder, asks users if they want an edit button

Elon Musk, who recently became Twitter’s largest shareholder, has posted a poll on the website asking users whether they want an edit button. His options are a misspelled “yse” and “on,” which might make you think that the whole thing is joke until you see that the poll has been retweeted by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal. “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully,” Agrawal wrote, hinting that the poll could lead to an actual edit button on the social network. 

Many Twitter users have asked for an edit button over the years, but the website has remained staunchly resistant to those requests. In a video Q&A with Wired back in 2020, Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey said the website will “probably never” add an edit button. He explained that the social network started as a text messaging service, and you can’t take back a text once you’ve sent it. Twitter apparently wanted to preserve that vibe and feeling.

Musk, who’s been a prolific tweeter way before he purchased 9.2 percent of the social network, might serve as the catalyst for the company to change that outlook. As of this writing, 74.7 percent out of the 1,439,779 accounts that participated in the poll voted “yse” to an edit button. Whether Twitter will immediately start working on the feature if “yse” wins remains to be seen. That is, if it hasn’t started developing it yet — the official Twitter account recently posted that the company is “working on an edit button,” but that was on April Fools’ Day.

It’s also unclear how an edit button would work on Twitter, where reposting other people’s content is widely practiced. If the person who tweeted the original post edits it, will the retweeted content reflect the change, as well? And will the edit button for a tweet be available indefinitely or only for a short period of time? Dorsey said during the Wired interview that Twitter previously considered giving users a 30-to-60-second window to correct something, which would be more than enough time to edit spelling mistakes and other minor changes.

Elon Musk now owns a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk now owns 9.2 percent of Twitter after purchasing $2.89 billion in stock, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing spotted by CNBC. The purchase follows recent criticism by Musk over the social media site’s free speech policies. “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” he tweeted last week.

Musk is a prolific Twitter user and has over 80 million followers, but the platform has also brought him trouble. Most famously, in 2018 he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 a share, setting off an SEC lawsuit that cost him $20 million and his spot as chairman of the board. Musk recently challenged the settlement, saying that the SEC overstepped its authority. He’s asking a federal judge to terminate his agreement requiring some tweets to be vetted by a lawyer.

Along with the comment, Musk launched a Twitter poll last week with the question “Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this [freedom of speech] principle?” He also mused about the idea of starting his own social media platform, saying he was giving it “serious thought.” 

In a follow-up tweet, Musk said that “the consequences of this poll will be important,” and that prediction has now apparently come true. His stake in Twitter is still a passive one, but he could up the stakes somewhat. “This eventually could lead to a buyout,” analyst Dan Ives told CNBC. Musk is now the platform’s largest shareholder, and Twitter shares have reportedly surged more than 25 percent in premarket trading, according to CNBC. 

Update 4/4/2022 11:52 AM: The post has been updated with information that Musk is now Twitter’s biggest shareholder.

TweetDeck may become a paid Twitter Blue option

TweetDeck — a version of Twitter beloved by journalists, social media pros and other power users — might soon become a paid app, The Verge has reported. A new version of the app redirects to the Twitter Blue subscription signup page, according to code discovered by security researcher Jane Manchun Wong. It promises “a powerful, real-time tool for people who live on Twitter” and would be an “ad-free experience,” according to screenshots. 

TweetDeck is already an essentially ad-free experience, so the inclusion of that language strongly implies that it would become a paid service. The new version would be a “complete rebuild with the parts from the new Twitter app,” Manchun noted in a reply. However, she also spotted a link for a “legacy version” which could still be free. 

Twitter launched its Twitter Blue subscription service last November for $2.99 per month. Some features like top articles were seen as positives, but users also criticized Twitter for hiding key features like an “undo” button behind a paywall. 

Twitter has been testing a new version of TweetDeck since last year, with significant changes like “a full Tweet composer, new advanced search features, new column types, and a new way to group columns into clean workspaces,” the company wrote. Some power users haven’t exactly embraced it, however, due to user interface and other issues. 

The company has also pondered a TweetDeck subscription service, asking users in 2017 if they’d be willing to pay up to $20 per month for a “more advanced TweetDeck experience.” And last year, Bloomberg reported that Twitter was considering a subscription fee for the app. 

The move would make sense for Twitter internally, as TweetDeck has always been a black sheep product that lets users bypass ads. Adding it to Twitter Blue would finally allow the company to monetize it and offer a true ad-free experience — since Twitter Blue itself still includes ads.