Twitter appears to be testing a feature that will allow people to remove themselves from conversations for the first time.
The move, which was first spotted by researcher Jane Manchun Wong, appears to include an onboarding screen that will tell people what to expect when they remove themselves from a conversation. According to that screenshot, removing yourself from a conversation will stop you from getting notifications — although you’ll still be able to see the conversation should you want to.
- Untag your username: Your username stays, but it’ll be untagged from the original Tweet and all replies.
- Stop future mentions: People can’t mention you again in this conversation.
- Stop notifications: You won’t receive further notifications, but can still see the conversation.
While Twitter already allows people to mute a conversation, this new approach is different in that it will remove the link to a user’s profile — preventing people from clicking through to it or just engaging you in a secondary conversation as The Verge rightly points out.
Twitter isn’t saying anything about this latest discovery so there is not telling when, or if, this feature change will make its way to the masses. There’s no denying it’s a change that some people would benefit form, though. Especially those with large followings who sometimes find themselves stuck in the middle of a conversation they want no part in.
This feature, if it ships, will likely only be available via the official Twitter app, however. That’s a shame — it isn’t the best iPhone app for actually reading tweets — but is unfortunately par for the course these days.
