Social

Twitter is testing a feature on iOS that prompts you to rethink heated responses

Ah, heck.

by
Josiah Motley
May 6, 2020

Image: KnowTechie

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If you spend a lot of time on Twitter, you’ve surely seen things that have made you angry. It’s also possible that you responded with some pretty harsh words. Now, a new Twitter prompt is being tested on iOS which tries to gently nudge users to reconsider the tweet they are about to send out.

It was first noticed this week and now Twitter has confirmed the existence of the test through – you guessed it – Twitter.

While it is uncertain exactly what prompts the message to come up when you go to post something, it seems certain curse words on the main culprit. It’s also important to note that this doesn’t actually block someone from posting the tweet. They can simply ignore it and move forward with the tweet.

When things get heated, you may say things you don't mean. To let you rethink a reply, we’re running a limited experiment on iOS with a prompt that gives you the option to revise your reply before it’s published if it uses language that could be harmful.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020

I’m not entirely sure what prompts the message. I literally told Kevin to “Go fuck himself” this morning and Twitter was like nah bro, it’s cool, send that shit. You good. Either Twitter knows what’s up with Kevin, or there’s something at play here that I don’t understand. Whatever the case, I didn’t get a warning and that is a bit surprising. Maybe because we follow each other.

Regardless, it’s an interesting move from Twitter. In a time where more social media companies are looking at ways of purging insensitive content, removing hate speech, and other forms of harassment, this seems like a simple way to make some of us think a bit more about what we’re sending.

https://twitter.com/goodatsexguy/status/1257713236087992321

Will it work? Who knows, I actually feel like getting the prompt may just provoke people to make it even worse before sending it.

What do you think? Are you glad to see this feature being tested? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.